


like it's written in the stars (i will find you)

by beansprout



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: M/M, Mythology - Freeform, World of Ruin, band au, sun and moon au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-14
Updated: 2019-05-22
Packaged: 2019-08-02 05:40:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 32,336
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16299167
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beansprout/pseuds/beansprout
Summary: The world lied in ruins. Generations had been born in the dark. Ignis was a Hunter, who in his spare time sang with his little band of Galahdians at bars and rest stops, bringing a modicum of wonder and hope to the weary people. Ignis had no memory of who he was, but he'd found the first hint in one of his admirers: Noctis, a mysterious young man, with charming stories to tell about the gods who dwelled in the now dark sky. But maybe Noctis' stories were more than meet the eyes, and the truth was too hard to bear after all.Or: The Sun and the Moon had fallen, and it was time for them to find each other again in the dark.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hewwo friends, here I am back on my bullshit with the mythology AUs. This is another AUs I came up with Monzy, inspired by the various sun and moon gods fanarts that I've seen on Tumblr. We took the concept and tried to make up a story to match with our fancy. We didn't get very far with it but i took the liberty to continue to build on what we had. IT MIGHT SEEM PRETTY CONFUSING AT FIRST... but i hope things will become clearer for you eventually.  
> I'd like to hear your feedback because this is a bit different from what I usually write... I hope you'll enjoy reading.
> 
> Title is from the song Paper Boats by Darren Korb and sung by Ashley Barrett, from the game Transistor!

He caught the young man’s eyes again, in the crowd.

It wasn’t all that strange to catch the eyes of a listener. The audience was small because their band was not that popular, and it was not like people had the means, nowadays, to travel just to watch a band perform. Their venues, invariably, were also modest – not a lot of space for bars when there were wounded to tend to, weapon and ammo to stockpile and food to keep out of the rain – but people were so starved of entertainment that they would be sure to pack the place full every time anything happened. 

Every other performance, musicians and audience would all be thrown together, shoulders to shoulders, bodies to bodies. It could get quite awkward, uncomfortable even, and perhaps that was the charm of it. To be close to other living bodies, to feel their warmth, hear their breaths, even smell their sweat – all those experiences had become simple pleasures rendered rare in a world laid to waste by the darkness, where half or more of its habitants had become simply not human. So eye contact wasn’t anything out of the ordinary. Contact, even the kind that used to be regarded as intimate, now a luxury that they all craved, was all part of the show. Ignis had gotten used to sharing and receiving something in a flitting moment when his gaze locked with that of a stranger, but that something was usually only skin deep. 

He had other things to focus on. 

In the heat of the music, as he felt reverberate in his bones the beats of the drums and the shivers of the bass, as he infused his lungs with the scent of old wood and older cigarette smoke, of the gasoline used to run the generators and the kerosene for storm lamps when that failed, as the dim light from the greasy light bulbs soaked into his skin, Ignis didn’t let his attention stray for long. His gaze may linger without really seeing, his lips may settle into a smile without him recognizing the person he was smiling at. What really occupied his mind was the shape of the lyrics in his mouth, the flow of air feeding the song like bellows in a forge, from his belly to his throat, rolling off the tip of his tongue to coalesce into form in the air around him.

It was the purest form of creation, to create something out of nothing. No, that was not accurate. The act was even nobler than that. He was creating something from pieces of himself, from all that he had to offer. To give the breath from his lungs and to whisper the thoughts from his head into form – It all gave Ignis a thrill unlike anything else he could ever experience. 

When he sang, he felt as if he came alive. When he sang he felt like he was closer to touching the part of himself that he’d forgotten. 

That was an illusion, of course. He’d joined the band months ago and still he was no closer to remembering who he really was. But at least when he sang it felt as if it didn’t matter. In that moment he felt as if he knew exactly who he was, and as long as that was true, other people didn’t matter all that much. The fact that the illusion was shattered whenever the song ended only made Ignis more eager to renew the experience, over and over again. Singing was to him a prayer, a sacred act. He should not have been distracted. He shouldn’t even have noticed anything apart from his own existence, rendered palpable for only as long as the song lasted. 

But then he discovered that his existence didn’t depend only on his songs.

Because the young man had looked at Ignis as if he knew him.

*

By the third time this happened, Ignis was actually, consciously searching the crowd for the young man.

He didn’t make it easy for Ignis. As far as Ignis was aware, the young man had ever only been dressed all in black. Black hair hung in soft waves around his face, pleasing in its simplicity, but not exactly attention-grabbing. The modest – almost shy – tilt of his head and the shadows he usually stood in obscured his features almost totally, as if he didn’t want to be noticed. As if he enjoyed his little upper hand over Ignis, to be able to sate his eyes watching the singer and not returning the favor.

But then, inevitably, a beam of light would fall on his face, and he would be transformed.

The young man had a visage that was just perfect for the light to shine on. Even the dusty, grimy light filtered through the greasy light bulb of the bars was enough to throw relief onto his face, contrasting starkly with pale skin. The shadows then melted into his features, shaping the noble line of his nose, the mild hollows of his cheeks, the depth under his brows. And his eyes, oh. When the young man looked up – as he only did when he tried to catch Ignis’ eyes, an action almost out of character given the lengths he’d gone to make himself unnoticeable, as if he couldn’t help himself – it was as if the light filled in his eyes to make their colors ever more vibrant. A soft, pure blue, perfect in its softness and blueness as he solemnly directed his look in Ignis’ direction.

When the young man smiled at him, Ignis found that he had interrupted the song of creation inside his own head, and made a conscious, heartfelt decision to return the gesture.

*

They sat together on the back of the young man’s beat up truck, talking and looking up at the sky.

They were perhaps further away from the powerful floodlight, the outpost’s only line of defense against daemons, than was wise. But the strong white glow was still close enough that the daemons might not be tempted to venture near. Ignis enjoyed the change, dangerous and out of character as it may be. Out here, the sky looked different. Instead of the milky gray he usually saw from under the barrier of light, the night was absolute in its endlessness and emptiness. A velvety void that would just swallow up every sound he made, were he to scream his lungs out into it, spitting back only the tortured chant of daemons as a reply. And who knew? Perhaps that was the song of the night, and the daemons were only singing a choir that glorified their own creation.

These were morbid enough thoughts, and then Ignis learned that the young man’s name was Noctis.

“A fitting name, for a world in eternal night,” teased Ignis. “At least those who named you are realistic. You were born in the dark, were you not? What is the point in naming a child Lux or Aurora, if it had never and would never see anything of the kind?” Already he felt comfortable enough to tease the young man, and not worry his dry humor be mistaken for cynicism or just plain rudeness. “Why doesn’t the world crawl with young people named Noctis?” 

He then watched with delight as, pale as the young man was, it became clear he was not carved from marble. In fact, his face was transparent with expressiveness, the corners of his lips barely able to help themselves as they twitched up in a rueful smile. “Maybe it does,” he said eventually. “But I’m still the first of them all.”

In the spirit of the conversation, Ignis didn’t ask how he knew, or how he could be so sure. In any case, it wasn’t even the strangest thing Noctis had said to him, not by far. For instance, when the floodlight flickered for a second, they were plunged into the dark. The outage lasted long enough for the after image of the light, imprinted in the retina, to fade, and then they were in total darkness. Ignis held his breath. The darkness was so constant it was a near solid thing. It was like a blanket that the Gods had lovingly spread over all of their creations. To cover and make some flourish, and to suffocate the rest.

“I wonder if anyone remembers that the sky isn’t empty,” Noctis’ voice was close, closer than it had been a second earlier, but Ignis didn’t mind. The move wasn’t exactly smooth, as Ignis could clearly hear Noctis shuffle – getting ready a weapon, just in case a daemon got the jump on them? As for Ignis’ part, he was hardly complacent in the safety of well-guarded outpost. The daggers in his boots were perfectly accessible, so he just sat still and let Noctis go on. “You can’t see the clouds like this, but they’re there.”

“You know all about clouds, do you?” Ignis smiled. “Tell me about them, then. I don’t even know if I’d ever seen them; if I had, then I’d forgotten all about them. I can’t even conjure up an image in my mind.” And yet that word seemed familiar even if, as Noctis’ had said, it was hardly ever mentioned these days. And really, Ignis was old enough to remember a world with light, wasn’t he? As he scrunched up his eyebrows trying to make himself remember (not that he’d ever succeeded) Noctis came to the rescue, providing with a set of images. Not the ones Ignis was expecting, but infinitely better.

“The clouds are the Sky’s flock.” The young man marked a pause, probably for dramatic effect, and then laughed at himself in face of Ignis’ lack of reaction, patting the back of Ignis’ hand lightly as if apologizing for teasing. “The Sky is a shepherd, you see. He keeps these sheep, whose wool is whiter and fluffier and lighter than air.” Noctis’ hand was still on his, his fingertips tracing nonsensical patterns, and Ignis let him. “They look like little balls of cotton, bobbing all over the place in the Sky’s domain. A strong gust of wind and they all become scattered, so they’re always all over the place, and it takes a lot of time to round them up for shearing. But when it does happen, the shearing, it’s really spectacular. All the wool comes down in stacks as big as mountains, and since they’re so light, they’re forever rolling and shifting around. And there’s so much of it that it can take hours even before the strongest wind can scatter everything.”

“My, that’s quite a lot of sheep,” Ignis said mildly, playing along. It was hard not to, because Noctis’ voice was sweeter and calmer than sleep. His skin was smooth and cool as marble, though not in a macabre way – Ignis could easy feel the living pulse through their contact, slow and steady. “The Sky,” and he spoke, purposefully, making the capital letter very clear, to show Noctis he believed in the story. “He must be quite the shepherd if he’s to take care of all the animals.”

“Yeah, he’s a big guy. Like, really big,” Noctis continued just as matter-of-factly as he’d been so far. “And he has wings, so that helps him cover the distance faster, I guess. He’s not the only winged one, but he was the first and his wings are the strongest, so he’s the fastest flyer the heavens have ever seen.” Noctis paused a little, then added, “I guess it’s a good thing he has so many sheep. With his size and then his wings to boot, he needs all that wool to make his big cloak. Comfiest thing you’d ever see, too.” 

“He cuts quite a lonely figure, this God of yours,” Ignis commented. He wasn’t even questioning the fact that they were talking about a fictional character like Noctis knew him personally. In the dark, anything was possible. “Just him, wrapped in his big cloak, and his sheep…”

“Oh, he’s not lonely. He never does his herding alone, he has Thunder and Lightning.”

“I see. Are they winged helpers, like their master?”

“Naw. They’re just lil’ pups.” Ignis could hear the grin in Noctis’ voice. There was fondness in it, and Ignis almost believe that in the sky, there really were two sheepdogs called Thunder and Lightning. He could even imagine them, licking at Noctis’ hands, bowling him over with the force of their enthusiasm. “Thunder is black so you don’t see him much, especially when it’s dark. You mostly hear him. His bark is so loud it terrifies the hell out of the sheep. If a stray sheep hears it, it’s gonna run as fast as its little legs can carry it, bouncing its way back to the flock. Otherwise, wherever it is, Lightning’s gonna find it and give it a good nip on the ankle. She’s white and moves so fast you only see her as a blurry streak. When she’s at a full run she sets the air around her on fire, so that wherever she goes you can see her spark and smell her burn.” 

Noctis was a good story teller. With the perfect darkness around them, Ignis didn’t even need to close his eyes to imagine the images the young man had conjured up. He could almost hear the rumble of Thunder, see the flash of Lightning sear the inside of his eyelids, and smell the ozone before the first drops of rain would fall on his skin. He could almost smell the petrichor, even if in reality they didn’t even have enough wet earth to release that smell even if the rain would fall, all that they had being dead parched sand. He was lost in the image for a moment, and he could see the Sky with his cloak lighter than air flapping behind him, the long black hair streaming from his head like a big rebellious flag. The Sky’s happiness was a simple thing. If you are one he loves, and if you come up to him, he would turn and laugh, delighted with your presence, and with the rumble of his laughter Thunder would always start barking, and that would almost always end in a big storm that would be over as suddenly as it had come.

The air suddenly became charged and Ignis’ skin prickled. With a small ‘pop’, all the lights came on again at the same time, making him flinch away as his eyes nearly watered from the scalding glow. When he recovered, he saw that Noctis was watching him with blue eyes like a storm. His lips tasted the way ozone felt, and his hands on Ignis’ wrist and neck tingled like static. Ignis almost asked Noctis if he hadn’t just petted Lighting, to carry some of her residual energy this way. But the question died in his throat as Noctis continued to kiss him, and Ignis was more and more certain that it wasn’t all there was to Noctis. 

To find out who he really was, the only way was for Ignis to keep kissing him. And he found that he didn’t mind that so much.


	2. Chapter 2

The next time they stepped out together, so to speak, Noctis spilled half a plate of tomato sauce down Ignis’ pants.

It couldn’t be called a date, not really. They had found each other at the outpost overlooking Galdin Quay. In the old days, apparently, the place used to be much bigger, a place of rest and leisure where people had flocked to, to enjoy the sand and sun. Now, the bay’s only virtue was that it overlooked the ocean, a natural barrier against the daemons who weren’t all so fond of water. Records had it that, since the place had been so crowded when the Scourge had first hit, it had quickly swarmed with daemons, corrupted humans with nowhere to go and naught to devour but each other, which had only worsened their hunger and made them more ruthless. It’d taken years and years of organized efforts to clean out the creatures, reclaim that place and make it safe again. 

After the outpost was founded, it became clear people could come here to let their guard down for a second. An industrious cook had set up a sort of eatery from an unused warehouse, serving them what little fresh seafood she could scrounge up, though she did do amazing creative things with the usual rations. The ones who were old enough to remember started to come to have a glimpse of the past, a brief flashback to the world before civilization had crumbled. The young ones came for the novel experience of eating food that weren’t handed out in a line. People ate quickly, enjoying what little sea breeze that was not infected by the stink of the daemons, and only having to keep an eye out for the alarm every ten minutes instead of every five.

As you’d expect, Eos’ ‘night life’ scene wasn’t exactly flourishing.

They still traded in gil, useless bits of metal they may be, but still easier to carry and to exchange than other forms of supplies. Noctis expended a handful of the stuff – just spreading his hand and sprinkling the coins over the countertop like he didn’t know how else to measure them. As with any other business transactions, the eatery required that they paid up front – the house didn’t want to risk having to look for their clients’ dead bodies to retrieve their payment and tip. The amount Noctis had paid was worth a fortune in supplies, and it fetched them two small plates of fresh white fish in tomato sauce, over some wild rice that someone must have gone to great pains to gather. They could eat it sitting inside on an overturned crate, using another bigger overturned crate as a table, huddled around a kerosene lamp. Ignis didn’t blame Noctis in the slightest for opting to eat outside instead, under the relentless bleaching white floodlight, even if it meant they had to sit on the rotting pier and balancing their plates over their knees.

They managed to enjoy perhaps half of the food before Noctis leaned over, presumably going for a kiss. What he did was put his hand on Ignis’ knee and unbalance his tray. The flimsy paper plate immediately overturned, spilling the tomato sauce all over his lap and spraying it all the way to his shirt front. 

Never had there been a man more mortified. Ignis laughed so hard the rice he’d managed to eat found its way up his nose. As he was still attempting to snort it out, he was hit with another fit, caused by Noctis’ genuine bafflement when his request for napkins was met with disbelief and disdain from the cook. “Where have you been for the last ten years?” he wheezed, sopping up what he could with his shirt tail. “Napkins are a myth. There is a large body of water nearby. That’s all I need to get clean. Theorically.” 

After having stuffed the rest of the food in their mouths – Ignis was adamant on this point, as there was no sense in wasting perfectly good and expensive food, especially since leaving them uneaten would not make his clothes any less ruined – they made their way cautiously further along the wooden planks. Ignis’ hand was in Noctis’ the whole way, as if the young man was afraid Ignis would take a wrong step and fall into the dark waters that loomed just beyond the reach of the electric lights. Ignis had to admit he didn’t exactly dislike the experience. It was incredibly soothing and comforting to just run his thumb over Noctis’ hand and feel the callouses there, count them, trace their shapes and map their locations. 

Finally they were out far enough for the water to be relatively clear of the debris and trash that inevitably came from human habitation. Ignis pulled off his shirt and used it to mop up the mess in his lap, before handing it over for Noctis to wash in the warm salt water. The salt probably was acting more like brine and would only make the already worn clothing even thinner, but it still beat smelling like fish for the rest of the evening. Presentation was important, Ignis always thought, and he was on something like a date.

After Noctis had made it as clean as he could, the shirt was draped craftily over a hook to dry. Ignis, not without some self-consciousness, climbed out of his pants so Noctis could scrub them too. The night was warm, but he still shivered in the water-laden sea breeze. Noctis dropped his jacket over his shoulders apologetically, diverting his eyes but not quick enough for Ignis not to notice the slight flush of his cheeks. Then the young man returned to the arduous task of trying to get tomato sauce off of Ignis’ trousers. 

“It’s not that bad,” Ignis said, after having watched him for a little while and fully absorbing how sorry his little dark form was. Indeed, there was something inherent to the bowed line of Noctis’ back and the bent of his neck that spelled out more apology than embarrassment. At his words, Noctis glanced back to shoot him a disbelieving look, and Ignis chuckled. “I’m honest. It’s not that bad in the way of first dates. This way I’m sure I would never forget it.” Even as he said those words he doubted them; after all he’d managed to forget half a lifetime already, so what was an evening more? He floundered, and finished off in an attempt to save his consolation speech. “We’ll have something to laugh about next time.”

It was pretty feeble, as consolations went, but Noctis’ face still lit up. Ignis smiled. He knew Noctis would pick up on the ‘next time’ that he’d oh-so-casually slipped in there. 

“Yeah, I guess it could be worse,” he spoke, finally, after having paused to roll up the sleeve of his shirt, which had come down during the scrubbing. “It could’ve been a real disaster. Like when Stars met the Sky.” 

Now, under any other circumstances Ignis would never be in the mood for a story like this. He had been completely honest when he’d said it was not that bad an accident, and he did not blame Noctis in the slightest, but his situation was still quite awkward and embarrassing. He was standing naked but for his underwear and Noctis’ jacket, on the pier facing the ocean, at the very edge of the dome of light that was all the outpost provided for safety. He could not sit down for fear of getting a splinter in the ass, and there was nothing else out here that could serve for a seat. He had not gotten to enjoy the first fresh fish he’d ever had for months, and he knew that he would have to wear damp clothes for his ride back to Lestallum, and his neighbors would probably have less than pleasant things to say about the way he smelled. 

But, as he’d already noted: Noctis was a very good story teller. 

“Who is this Stars?” Ignis asked, and he was really not just indulging Noctis. Ignis thought his stories sounded the way homes were supposed to feel – the homes that didn’t exist anymore in this world. So his motives for encouraging Noctis really were selfish. There was something about Noctis’ voice that just took the edge off of him. Perhaps the tenderness was sparked by the way Noctis referred to these characters like they were someone they both knew, like distant cousins or old classmates. Or perhaps it was the furtive glances Noctis kept sending his way, full of hope and expectation, as if checking that Ignis was liking the characters as much as Noctis did. All these little details made Ignis wanted to try harder to get to know these characters too, so that he could recognize them the way Noctis clearly wanted him to. “I don’t think I’ve seen a single star in my life,” he added, a confession, and Noctis nodded his head wisely.

“It’s a shame we can’t see them, even if they’re still there, same as the clouds. Actually, even back when things were still normal, Stars’ birds were never just out there for all to see. They’re really shy, which I guess is perfectly understandable for birds that small and that pretty. Anything could kill them, and anything might be tempted to do exactly that to steal their coat of glittering gold feathers. The birds ended up hiding around in high corners of the heavens, places that would be hard for anyone else to reach. Up there, though safe, they were hungry and thirsty. There used to be so few of them.”

“Poor little birds.” It was almost heartfelt. Ignis couldn’t help but mentally compare them – the remaining humans – to the birds that Noctis was describing. Was this the symbolism the story was going for? Could the stories have been made up by the survivors after all, a romanticization of their current existence? He tried not to overthink it – He, for one, would be able to testify that he did not insert six different layers of symbolism into his song lyrics. He just came up with whatever felt right at the moment, and perhaps the truth about these stories were just as simple. “But you said they were the Stars’ birds?”

“Yeah! They weren’t anyone’s at first of course, but Stars found them and took care of them. He’s one of the young ones, you see, made from the dark, and the Lord of the Dark gave him wings even if the Lord himself doesn’t have any. Whenever Stars was not attending to the Lord he liked to go exploring. He can’t compare with the Sky’s wings in speed and strength, but he’s swift and daring and bold when the need arises. And he definitely considers little birds shivering and starving a need.” Noctis laughed softly as he pulled the pants up and squeezed them to dry. After spreading them out for inspection under the light, he found he wasn’t happy with their cleanliness yet, and returned to work. “He can make the almost vertical climb up the cliff side and weave his way in and out of the crevices where the birds like to hide. He brings them food and water, sometimes even a treat like a flower or some honey. And the birds repay him with their feathers, all gold and glittering and sparkling.” 

“Pretty,” Ignis commented. “He must have amassed quite a treasure over the years.”

“Oh, he doesn’t care about that. I’m not sure he even knows what they’re worth. He was just hoarding them cause he couldn’t bear to throw away something the birds gave to him in so much earnest, and after—After the dark fell, he found a use for them. The little feathers were the last things to retain some of the light, and he wanted to give them to his friend, who was grieving and who would cheer at nothing except from the sight of those little twinkling specks…” Noctis trailed off a little, distracted, then bit his lower lip almost violently to pull himself back together. “Anyway, he hangs out with the birds so much and handles so many of their feathers that that they stain his skin and cling to his face. Before he knew it, there were constellations all over his skin, across the bridge of his nose, over his shoulders. It doesn’t wash off, either, I guess once gratitude takes hold of one it’s there to stay. Eventually his hair became golden, too, the color of starlight, and he became the glittering one for all that he was made from the dark.”

Ignis closed his eyes and could almost visualize the sight of Stars’ face, an eager, young face with a sprinkle of stardust over the nose. Noctis was right, gratitude didn’t wash off, and the Stars had earned more than that during his still-short existence. He wore his kindness on his skin, quite literally, and it was easy to tell when he was happy. He shone all the brighter when he smiled. His light was borrowed, but it was not a problem at all. Who could begrudge lending some radiance to a creature so pure despite having been quite literally formed from darkness?

“He sounds very graceful,” Ignis commented eventually. His head was feeling at the same time too full and too empty. Too full because fragments of Noctis’ story was banging on all around in there, trying to take up all the space, but couldn’t. There were other memories, but as much as Noctis’ words were banging on them, as much as Ignis dug and dug trying to unearth something, anything, he could still put his finger on nothing. He wasn’t angry, though. Just bewildered, lost. Hanging between the comfort of the story and… something he could not name. He thought it was close to nostalgia, or homesickness, but how could this be? He had not heard those stories before. “How did his meeting with Sky turn out to be such a disaster, then?”

“Oh, that. It wasn’t his fault, really. He was coming back from a visit with the birds and he got chased by daemons.” Noctis paused, seeing Ignis’ surprised expression, and he chuckled. “Yeah, daemons visit the heavens too. They were the Lord of the Dark’s first creations. The Gods thought them so grotesque they banished them to Eos, where they multiply and spread through the humans, but still they’re jealous of their younger siblings who are allowed to dwell in the heavens. They can never get past the heavens’ guards, but it doesn’t mean they stop trying. Anyway, Stars was running for his life from the daemons, and they were so close that he had no choice but to trespass into the Sky’s domain. The Sky was right there, unfortunately, and Stars ran straight into him, basket of feathers and all. All the feathers spilled onto the Sky’s famous cloak and clung there and there was nothing in heavens or on Eos they could do to get them off.” Noctis paused and added, “Just like these damned tomato stains, obviously.”

Ignis was startled with a laugh, and he went to take the soaked trousers from Noctis’ hands. After a moment’s inspection, he shrugged and squeezed them dry again, before pulling them on. “Well, from what you already told me, I don’t think the feather-stains would be all that ugly. And do tell me the Stars was safe, please?”

“He was! Thunder and Lighting chased the daemons back to Eos, and the Sky had them securing his borders. Stars was distraught, of course, sure he was going to be executed for ruining the Sky’s cloak. He’d only ever seen the Sky from afar, being only a minor demi-god and a servant and all. His first meeting with a great God and he’d blundered so badly. Lucky for him the Sky didn’t think his cloak was ruined, quite the opposite. He liked it so much that he asked Stars to bring more feathers, to sprinkle them over all his sheep. It was just an excuse, of course. What the Sky really wanted was to see more of Stars.” 

“Crafty,” Ignis chuckled. “But I hope the Stars still had some feathers to spare, for his grieving friend.” Already these fake deities have stolen Ignis’ heart, and he wanted to make sure they were all doing well, as silly as it was. Noctis didn’t comment on it, though. He watched Ignis collect his shirt and put it back on, though he gestured that Ignis could keep the jacket. They started slowly walking back towards the outpost, not wanting to test their luck longer. Noctis’ skin seemed more marble-like, more washed out the more they approached the strong floodlight. 

Ignis’ hand shot out to take his, as if he was worried Noctis would be erased right out of existence if he didn’t pay attention. The smile Noctis gave him then was so tender it could collapse mountains. 

“Don’t worry, Stars never forgot his friend. In fact, he kept up with his duty so faithfully, his friend was exasperated. He had to be told to just stay with the Sky in his domain, to be close to him more.” Noctis’ eyes were brighter than ever, and as they stopped right under the light, Ignis thought he could see flecks of stardust in them. “And in any case, his friend was done grieving. He thought it was high time he does something else instead.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you're enjoying this still! I think the plot is slowly emerging in this chapter though it's still only the beginning. This story has two of my favorite things to write: making up mythologies and writing Noctis being a massive idiots. So let me know if you're enjoying it too!!


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's Ignis' turn to tell the story, for once.

A permanent residence was something of a luxury in this world of ruin they lived in. 

Thanks to Ignis’ relative fame, he’d managed to secure a small apartment in one of humanity’s last strongholds – Lestallum. It was his custom to return there, whenever he was in town, to rest – especially after a show. It was, however, not his custom to have company. 

He used to invite his bandmates each time, offering to share with them if not his bed, then at least the spare blankets and whatever floor space they could make themselves comfortable on. They’d taken him up on his offer a few times, but Ignis suspected they did this only to be polite. Usually they had places to be of their own. As a late comer in the group and one with something worse than a sketchy past – no past at all – he had little to tie himself to the hopelessly tangled but inseparable knot that had already linked Nyx, Libertus and Crowe together, and even with the other Galahd immigrants who were not part of the band.

This little square place was all that he had that was entirely his own, a little privacy to reassure him he existed outside the attention of other people. It was only a glorified cubicle barely large enough to hold a single bed, kitchen counters with the odd rusty appliances he may or may not be allowed to use, depending on the electricity fluctuation in the city, and the cupboards and closets that tightly lined the wall. The aptly-named water closet was little bigger than a shoebox, and the faucet was leaking – making drip drip noise into the bucket that Ignis had set out to catch the water. Thankfully for Lestallum residents and for Ignis, even with the fabled Disc gone, the climate here was still mild enough that he could still wash straight from the bucket on most days. Already he must be thankful for the running water. He was sure showers must still exist somewhere, but for people like him such things were so decadent they might as well be a sin. 

Though modest, the place was always kept clean and tidy, so it was not his home that made Ignis self-conscious. He was simply more used to slipping into his stage costume for an audience than to perform this act in the reverse – albeit only for an audience of one. Noctis’ eyes bore holes into Ignis’ back as he pulled off the weathered leather jacket with the spikes on the shoulder pads, carefully arranging it on a hanger and then on the designated nail on the wall. As he made his very short way towards the bed he carefully took off his ear cuff – a thing that glittered like gold but which was more likely brass. It didn’t matter, though, neither of these metals held much value in this world. Still, it was a lovely piece of jewelry – curving over the shell of Ignis’ ear, sprouting gold spikes of its own and throwing back any light that shone upon it – and Ignis thought it was a good enough reason to wear it.

“Where did you find such a thing?” Noctis asked, watching Ignis put the ear cuff down on the night table. His gaze only lingered on the crown until Ignis joined him on the bed, and then his eyes were on Ignis again as he shifted to get closer, to settle between Ignis’ legs and hooked his own around the small of Ignis’ back, and get his arms around Ignis’ neck. Stacked together like this, they might just fit onto the narrow bed, and Ignis made it work. 

It couldn’t have been the first time that Noctis had seen the ear cuff – Ignis wore it with every performance – but he’d reined in his curiosity this long. In return, Ignis gave him the truth and none of the stories people liked to circulate about the band, especially him. (Still, they had so few pleasures left, and if gossip was one of them Ignis couldn’t really begrudge them that.)

“I don’t remember,” he said, because the truth was plain and unexciting like that. “I just found it when I washed up on the beach. I was quite delirious with fatigue, you see, and I thought it was just a peculiarly shaped shell. I held it and ran my fingers over the spikes and somehow, that helped me hang onto my consciousness for a little while longer. Long enough to hear a team of hunters making their ways towards my direction.” The muffled sound the sand made around their boots with each heavy footfall had felt like a dream, and at that point Ignis had the distinct memory of not even knowing what sand was. “Knowing they were there somehow got me enough strength to call out to them, so that they could pull me back into the light before the daemons could get to me.”

The not-seashell, the subject of the story, sparkled innocently in a little ceramic dish that Ignis had gotten for it, to mark its place among the well-organized clutter on the bedside table. Noctis glanced at it again, but Ignis gave it no more thought. He was thinking of something a little more amusing to tell Noctis. “When I started wearing it to performances, Nyx had the idea to make my jacket to match. I don’t know how he came by the metal to make the spikes, or how he acquired the skill to secure them onto the leather. He just stole my jacket, and on the next day returned it to me with all these spikes safely riveted onto the shoulders. I couldn’t possibly undo what he had done without ruining the jacket. I could have shouted at him.” 

Except he couldn’t have, not really. Whatever part of Ignis that still felt vanity was pleased with the effect the matched pair got. Though, he had to admit, the metal that Nyx used for the jacket couldn’t compare to that with the earcuff. He had to polish the jacket every so often, lest the green tarnish on the spikes grow and leech into the leather. He needed no such precautions for his earcuff – just a quick rub with the pad of his thumb and it looked brand new and good to go. 

“So the stories are true?” Noctis offered one of his smiles, both good-humored and somehow still tinged with sadness. He rested a hand against Ignis’ chest, fingers splayed open, and somehow it felt like a talisman against the bad memories that had been, and would be stirred by Noctis’ questions of what little past Ignis remembered. An apology and a blessing, all in one. “You really are a mysterious man, washing up on the shore of Galdin Quay out of nowhere. And then not knowing anything about anything at all, you just decided that you had to sing and steal all the hearts in the land?”

“Are you jealous?” Ignis laughed, resting his cheek on Noctis’ shoulder, almost lazily pressing his lips to the pale throat. His hand found its way under Noctis’ shirt but only to caress, over and over, the strip of skin between his waistband and the tail of his shirt where it had ridden up. Not starting anything yet, just wanting some sort of contact between them. “No, Noctis. While I enjoy being shrouded in an air of mystery—“ He felt the warm puff of air as Noctis snorted, “—it’s only that I don’t remember where I came from. I could hardly have come out of nowhere, or fallen out of the sky.” Noctis’ shoulder jerked lightly, just once, the movement imperceptible if Ignis hadn’t happened to be draped all over it. He took it for another snort at his stale joke. He pressed on, making a point to be more sensible now. “I must have been aboard one of the ships that had been at sea when the Scourge struck. A daemon threw me overboard, or I threw myself in an attempt to escape them. Something as simple as a knock to head could have taken my memory. I supposed I was lucky to make it out with my life intact, and uninfected at that…”

“Reasonable,” Noctis agreed. “In a way, the most unlikely part of that story is how you just decided to be a singer.” He pulled back to smooth his hand through Ignis’ hair, the gesture so full of fondness it almost seemed like one between a parent and a child. “How did that come about, by the way? How did anyone come up with the idea to sing in a world like this?”

“It’s hard to explain.” And it was, too. Ignis wasn’t just saying that to keep up with his aloof and mysterious image. The rush of the creation was not something easily put into words. So he went with the simpler option, and just gave Noctis the facts. “I can’t claim all the credit; it was a rather impulsive decision from all of our parts. Being a late comer, I just got grafted into the hunting team with Nyx, Libertus, and Crowe. When we stopped to make camp, they were just sitting around the fire and singing, very quietly, this song about their homeland.” It was easy to realize why they’d done so – there was nothing like a lonely fire under the vast darkness to make one feel almost fatally homesick and long for the impossible comfort of what they had lost. “I was moved. I joined in.”

The forlorn wistfulness must have resonated with Ignis more than he had realized. As he hummed, then sang, he felt for the first time this sense of belonging, of existence, of being something more than the hollow shell that the sea water had washed cleanly out. And as always, that feeling like he was on the verge of remembering. “It got away from me,” was how he concluded now, absently picking at a loose thread on Noctis’ shirt. “When I stopped, I realized the others had stopped, too. Then they were freaking out.” 

It was not an overstatement. He could still see Libertus’ slack-jawed surprise, and how Crowe had impatiently closed his mouth before she had started pelting Ignis with questions. “They thought I must have come from Galahd too, to know their song as I did. But it was not just the song, but the music in itself. It took them a long time to be convinced of this, they were grilling me quite mercilessly.” To no avail, Ignis added to himself bitterly. Wouldn’t it have been nice to be able to claim that homeland for himself. Sometimes Ignis still wondered, what if he had lied? What if he had pretended that yes, he had come from Galahd? Would he have felt more like he belonged? 

In any case, it was all a moot point now. Sitting here with Noctis, Ignis could not think why he would go so far as to lie to seek the approval of anyone else. “When it was all said and done, Libertus came up with the idea to bring the music to other people. I was eager to, as well. Maybe someone would hear what I had to say, and recognize me…” He had not meant to say that aloud, but he had, and he didn’t regret it. “And here I am.”

“Here you are.”

There was a shaky, breathless quality to these words from Noctis. They sounded almost like a prayer. When Noctis tilted his face up to meet Ignis’ eyes, he noted, not without dismay, the way his blue eyes had overflown with sorrow. Ignis would’ve asked what made him so sad, but he didn’t dare. There were so many things he didn’t know about Noctis. Who he was, where he came from. What he did when he disappeared for days, even weeks on end, from every outpost the light could still reach. Ignis was by now a seasoned hunter, and wasn’t a stranger to weeks-long forays into the darkness, but even his band needed to come up for air every few days, to make their contact with the touchstones of sanity that were the outposts and rest stops scattered along the line, that people risked their life every day to run and maintain. 

When he’d gone too long without seeing Noctis, Ignis would inquire at every outpost, only to be told they’d never seen anyone matching that description recently. It was enough to drive a man out of his mind. On more than one occasion, Ignis found himself wondering whether his already damaged mind hadn’t begun playing tricks on him, conjuring Noctis up out of the night just to cope with the loneliness. What irked him most was that, it would be a more likely scenario than whatever other theories he could come up with. After all, his mind had already been broken once. It could very well be betraying him again.

And yet, it was hard to doubt Noctis when they were together. It felt pointless to ask questions, not even the ones that had burned in Ignis’ mind just moments ago. Kissing him felt better than singing had ever done, in the way it flooded Ignis’ heart with a warmth that the thrill of creation, while no less intense, could never compare in reach. It felt like Noctis’ presence was melting against him, like a spring on deserted lands, and the sweet water that flowed from him to sustain Ignis were reaching the dried creeks of the corners of his mind that his memory had left arid. The curve of his arms around Ignis’ shoulders, the whisper of fabric as his clothing fell from him, piece by piece, the magnetic pull of his body, the gentle friction of skin against skin made more intense by the knowledge of each scar, blemish and callous… The intimacies were a song by themselves, and Ignis was more than happy to sing it with his whole being, to worship what Noctis had come to mean to him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello it is me again. I am supposed to pace myself better than this... But I have an exam coming up soon and I need the positivity from the validation to deal with the stress and/or disappointment. If you read this and liked this story, a couple encouraging words help a lot ;v; I hope you like the story and enjoy reading!


	4. Chapter 4

Afterwards, they lied together in bed, limbs thrown over each other in a desperate tangle. Not just desperate for physical contact, that kind of desperation was too sweet to mention, but they were also literally fighting each other for space. The cramped cot could barely hold Ignis on the best of nights; with two of them there, it was practically begging to be put out of its misery. Once they managed to make themselves comfortable – as comfortable as they could be in the sweltering heat with their skin all damp and sticky with sweat – they looked at each other, their features illuminated by narrow stripes of light coming in through the barred windows. They grinned breathlessly, quiet now as they still had yet to catch their breaths. 

Noctis’ fingers wound into a strand of Ignis’ hair, then he was raking his hand upwards to push the messy strands from Ignis’ forehead, as if he was trying to make them stand up. Ignis let him. In return, Ignis’ fingers brushed Noctis’ back, barely daring to skim with the tips of his fingers lest the sensation of sweat made them both uneasy. All too soon, however, his fingertips registered the bump of scar tissues over sharp shoulder blades. Noctis felt it also, his muscles jumping and tensing under Ignis’ hand.

“Excuse me,” Ignis said, quickly withdrawing. He knew all too well what it was like to touch unwanted memories, even with what limited store of those he did have. He did not want any reminder of his long wait on the beach, empty and broken, just waiting for the water to take him, or for the salt to finish its job eroding him first. He wanted no reminiscence about the people he’d watched die, or live only to become maimed remnants of their former selves, wandering in the dark with lost eyes. He was still fumbling for a way to undo his misstep and dispel the tension when he caught Noctis’ eyes. The young man was smiling at him, fond and thankful, and there was a glint of determination in his eyes that Ignis had not seen before.

“It’s okay,” Noctis murmured. He reached over Ignis and turned on the night light – if it could be called that, being the only lamp that Ignis owned, which just happened right now to be on the bed side table, close at hand. Noctis sat up next – an acrobatic feat of its own, shifting heavy limbs out of the way and freeing them from the snatching, tangling bedsheets – and turned his back to Ignis, allowing the light and shadows to paint a picture over the expanse of his skin.

Ignis didn’t gasp aloud, but he did draw in a breath. Noctis’ back was a slashed canvas, a mangled collection of pain and anguish. The largest scar spread over the small of his back, a wound that could have broken his spine in two. Healed, it still took up most of the surface of his skin, pulling the muscles taut so that there was no way Noctis could have moved without feeling the tightness. As horrific as that one scar was, however, it did not monopolize the attention, especially after the shock had worn off. Ignis’ eyes were drawn to the smaller scars on Noctis’ shoulders. They were neater, a seemingly kindness betraying cruelty underneath, because it meant they ran deep, and whatever caused them had been calculating. Another hint to the deliberate nature of the injury was the fact that the scars were almost symmetrical, spanning from the top of Noctis’ shoulders to meet at the center, creating a perfect V. Like carving meat. Two neat incisions to cut off his wings.

“What happened?” Ignis asked softly, as if trying to preserve some of the serenity of the moment. It was too late, however. Noctis was squirming under his gaze, awkwardly pressing first one palm then the other to his shoulder blades. The beginning of an attempt to cover them up, the gesture aborted halfway as he realized how futile they would be, but it didn’t stop his body from the knee-jerk reactions, wanting to try again. 

Ignis knew this shame. He recognized it as having nothing to do with the cosmetic. Noctis was ashamed of the memory of the event that came with the scars, and he was not willing to share. Ignis couldn’t really blame him. People did what they had to do to survive. Even having shame at all was a luxury few could afford. “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to,” he said. Or, he’d wanted to say. Before the first word had fully left his lips, Noctis had stolen the moment, choosing to fill it not with pity, nor shame – but clever falsehoods instead.

“Hunting accident. Those happen from time to time, you know.” He said, as if Ignis _didn’t_ know. He embellished the lie with a smirk, a show of bravado to make it more convincing. “Those daemons have to keep me humble somehow, don’t they? Have to clip my wings. Keep me close to the ground.” 

Clipped wings. After the initial shock – that Noctis should give voice to Ignis’ idle, fantastical thought –those words filled Ignis with sadness. He didn’t even know why. He hadn’t even ever had wings and yet he felt it like a breath was snatched from his lungs and taken from him forever. Soon enough the feeling was starting to resemble dread, so much that it was completely irrational, and it made him angry at himself. Confused and puzzled. It must have shown on his face, because Noctis had read every thought then, too.

Noctis reached out. Turned off the light. Plunged back into the half dark, Ignis’ unease abated. Was he such a child to be soothed by the mere removal of the sight of monsters? Had the sight of Noct’s scars upset him so? Or was he thrown into a tizzy by the mention of a simple, idle metaphor – in which case it was even more ridiculous? Ignis spun these thoughts in his head, registering without noticing the sheets and thin mattress shifting beneath him. Noctis’ cool arms draped around his shoulders, his breath soft and sweet as he murmured platitudes in Ignis’ ear, pressing kisses to the side of his neck, his temple, his cheek. His hand closed around Ignis’ as the pad of his thumb stroked against the soft skin on the underside of his wrist.

“It’s fine,” Noctis was murmuring. Ignis took a deep breath, letting his heart slow to match the rhythm of those words Noctis was repeating to him over and over. “It’s fine, really. Men have always had their wings clipped, haven’t they? Even the gods. Several of them, in fact. Even the Sky got his wings clipped once, too, you know?”

“The Sky?” Ignis echoed, dazed. This knowledge shook him just as much as the sight of Noctis’ old injuries. “I thought he was a mighty god. I thought he was above man.”

“He is now,” Noctis explained, matter-of-factly, as if it was just the way it was and no contest. Ignis could tell he was about to launch into one of his tales, and he was – he was not only okay with it, he was eager for it. The way a child was eager for distractions from night terrors. “But he had been human once, in the long, long distant past. Maybe hundreds, thousands, hell, maybe even millions years ago, so long ago it doesn’t matter anymore to any of the gods, so long ago the Sky doesn’t even remember it himself. But he knows he had been human once.” Noctis paused to press a kiss to Ignis’ shoulder. His voice was steady, and the rise and fall of the story made Ignis’ heart calm. Noctis continued, quietly. “Even as a man the Sky was a mighty warrior, a great leader, so completely loved by his people that even the gods wanted to acknowledge him. The greatest of the gods came to honor him in person, and so at the peak of his glory the Sky met his downfall. He’d been granted a look upon the Sun’s face, you see, and his warrior heart had fallen in love instantly.”

This was the first that Noctis’ story ever mentioned the Sun. Given the state of the world, Ignis had thought that particular figure would be missing from the lore altogether. And in a way he was. The Sun had not been conjured up with the same details as the Stars – who had freckles, or the Sky – who softened his imposing stature by wrapping himself in a cloak of wool. As Ignis tried to picture the absentee god in his mind’s eye, all he could come up with was the silhouette of a man, backlit by such blazing white light that all his features were obscured and his expression couldn’t be read at all.

“The Sky, then only a mortal, wanted to be close to the Sun, if only for a moment,” Noctis continued. “So he constructed himself wings of eagle feathers and papers and twine and wood. The glue was not wax like it was told in some stories, but it melted all the same. The rest of the wings went up in flames before the Sun even realized what he had done. It was only later that the Sun came by the Sky’s broken remains, and he fell down on his knees and cried.” Noctis’ fingers were caressing Ignis’ arms so tenderly, as if he was trying to take some of the hurt from the story, so that it didn’t stay in Ignis’ veins, throbbing, infesting. “But he wasn’t grieving, just yet. The Sun was the greatest of the gods, and he invoked ancient rites, and he walked the empty space himself until he snared the Sky’s soul, which was still wandering Eos with its heart’s desire unfulfilled. He took the soul and he weaved power around it until it took form, and the soul was so strong and pure it held all the power the Sun gave it with no difficulty at all. The Sun made the Sky a god, the first one that was human at his core. He gave the Sky wings, glorious wings as only he deserved, so he would never fall again. He’d earned the ire of many of the gods, especially the Lord of the Dark, but the Sun didn’t care, because in the Sky he had found the sweetest companion. They spent many decades in the Sky’s humble cottage. Over the years, the Sky built his own legends and collected so many great deeds that he became a great god in his own rights. Then, his simple origins didn’t make him an outcast anymore, but only made the other gods all that more eager to welcome him.”

It seemed like a good enough ending, but something still nagged at Ignis. He felt like he had missed a detail, left something out of its usual place. “Wait, the Sky was the Sun’s lover?” he asked, nearly putting up his hand like a confused child. “I thought the Sky was in love with the Stars.”

“Well… have you seen the Sky?” Noctis chuckled. Ignis turned around to give him a look, which made him laugh a little more. “Alright, sorry, of course you have. What of it that we can see nowadays, anyway. The point is, the Sky’s heart is vast, and he can love more than one. Actually, it would be easier to count the ones that he doesn’t love. The Sun understands this, I suppose. I think, in many ways, the Sun was the same, too. His nature was to share, wasn’t it, to give? They were in love for a very long time with just each other. But in the end it was only in their nature to reach out to others, to spread. To welcome others within their fold.”

It seemed like a reasonable enough explanation, and Ignis was appeased. It wasn’t as if he had any business judging the morality of made up gods, but just knowing there was an understanding (and not a break-up) between the millennia-old lovers made him feel better. For a moment there he was feeling guilty about liking the Sky so much, if he was so changeable he would change lovers at the blink of an eye. But then, the Sky wasn’t only vast. Changeable was the Sky’s nature too, wasn’t it? If the stories were to be believed, then there were clouds that drifted over the Sky’s surface, and its color changed with every turn of the day, and it was the Sun who was responsible for this last. Knowing this, it seemed only natural that the Sun understood the Sky’s changeable nature, enough not to scorn his lover when he found his love could be shared.

This was all purely hypothetical, of course. Ignis didn’t know any of these gods, due to the minor inconvenience that they existed only in stories. He had never even seen clouds drift over the sky, had never seen the color of the sky change. He supposed it was the point of these stories – to keep the mind occupied so that they forgot about the suffocating dark all around them. For now, it had distracted him from the unease Noctis’ injuries had brought, and he pulled Noctis to him.

“Alright, I’ll allow your gods polygamy,” he declared generously, which made Noctis laugh and press a kiss to the tip of his nose. “But only because they’re very polite about it.”

“I knew you would, darling,” Noctis grinned.

“But,” Ignis spoke up, managing to catch Noctis off guard. “You said the Sun was the same as the Sky. Changeable. Wanting to share. Did he take another lover, then, in all the time they were together?”

“That,” Noctis said, his smile both mischievous and sad, “you’ll have to wait and find out later.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> not sure if that many people follow this fic, but to those of you who do: sorry for the long wait. I went and had a vacation and forgot I had this chapter sitting around waiting to be posted. Now i need to get around to writing more. This was meant to be a short fic and ballooned out, but it's nearly a kind of conclusion already. I hope you'll enjoy reading!


	5. Chapter 5

“Listen,” Nyx was saying, and Ignis was reading his lips more than he was hearing the actual words. “I really, _really_ don’t mind if you have a new gimmick. But maybe give us, I don’t know, I don’t ask for much, maybe five seconds’ heads up before you go and glow the fuck up like some human flood light? You know, just so we may avert our mortal eyes and not end up _fucking blinded_?” 

The sound was starting to register now, the roar of lyrics and music in Ignis’ mind finally quieting. He could now tell that Nyx was merely playing up his whining and scolding in an attempt to keep his voice from betraying something else. Ignis squinted at him, searching for additional hints to decode the message that Nyx was trying so hard not to parse. Was it concern? Wonder? Terror? 

He really couldn’t tell.

“What in the fresh hell was that, anyway?” Libertus chimed in, his face hovering somewhere on the right of Ignis’ vision. “Did you hide a flashlight under your clothes, or—“ 

“Don’t be ridiculous, Libertus,” interrupted Nyx. Rude as his words were, they were brought on by something like hysteria, not real dismissiveness (And it would be a fun thing to throw at Nyx later: _You really were in hysterics._ ) “Look at him! Skinny as a stick and his clothes are practically painted on!” ( _Do you have something to say about my show outfit, Nyx?_ ) “Where would he be hiding a light? Also, as useful as it sounds, it’s just physically impossible to have a light that won’t turn off, isn’t it? Unless we’re talking about miracles, in which case physics don’t matter, but given the state the world is in, I say I’d have a hard time believing—“

“Back off, both of you,” Crowe snarled. Now her face nearly took up all of his limited field of vision. Ignis squinted, lost, except for the feeling of her small, warm hands on his neck, checking for the steadiness of his pulse, then on his cheeks, turning his face from one side to the other. Lastly, efficiently, though not totally devoid of tenderness, her deft fingers parted his lids so that she might peer closely into his eyes and look for signs of damage there. Eventually, Crowe ended her examination of him with a rasping of her knuckles against his forehead – almost like an inquisitive knock on an absent-minded friend’s door, to check if someone was home. She sat back, looking at Ignis expectantly. “Well? Perhaps you’d like to explain? Fill us in on what we missed?”

“What you missed?” Ignis managed finally. He was feeling a strange strain on his throat, a sensation of muscles and bones having been pushed to their limits, which Ignis could associate to the state of his being after a performance. It was a clue for Ignis to situate himself in this blank that his mind was swimming in, but nothing really clicked. He couldn’t remember anything about this show in particular, not any more than any of the hundreds of shows he’d performed over the years. There was the trance of creation, melting one into the next with no discernable seams. The faces in the crowd faded, too, from one to the other – the same wide-eyed wonder, the same hope, the same rapturous abandon as they allowed themselves to be swept into his trance, imagining with him a world that _won’t be this way forever, please Gods, no, have mercy—_

Ignis stopped – making himself pause the recollection, before he was lost in it again. The only difference, if it was worth mentioning at all, was that not only his throat was tired today. It felt like his voice itself had been pushed to its breaking point. This had never happened before – Ignis had always thought ‘getting hoarse after screaming into a microphone for five hours straight’ was a thing that could happen, but only to other people. Still, there must be a first time for everything. When he spoke again, his voice was definitely croaky. “It seems I am the one who missed out much, more so than you. Could you help me out? At least tell me what you want me to explain?”

The other three exchanged a look and gave a synchronized sigh of exasperation. Crowe reached forward, taking hold of Ignis’ arm. He hardly had time to wonder what she was trying to get to when he realized that his wrist, dangling in front of his face, was wrapped in a bracelet. It was hard to tell the material of the beads that were connected together on a strand of fraying common white sewing threads. The beads were heavier than plastic, cool as glass, but semi-opaque and pearlescent. There was a transparent quality to the curve of their surface that made them seem halfway there and not there. 

All very strange, but those were hardly the most intriguing qualities about the beads. Ignis was sure the others were fretting out of their minds because the beads were _glowing_. 

“It started up—what, after the third song?” Crowe started. Nyx opened his mouth to object, but she cut him off ruthlessly. “Shut up, Nyx. After that drum solo on the second song, you were so fucking _gone_ you wouldn’t be able to tell if the sky fell on your head.” Nyx’s startled expression was almost comical, and he started to protest, then immediately thought better of it, as Crowe shot him a look that clearly said _‘I’m not done talking yet’_. “At first, they didn’t glow enough that people would notice. But when you got to that vocal solo on the fifth song—what was it? _Bury me in the dawn, lay me down on your bed of crushed crystals?_ It fucking blazed up. The audience nearly rioted.” She paused a little for effect, as if her words hadn’t been heavy enough, and then unleashed the finishing blow. “People were screaming that it was the dawn.”

Crowe’s eyes were on him like a hawk, Ignis knew that. Steadfastly he did not meet them, preferring to keep his eyes on the beads. They refused to demure. Even now they glowed, a steady if fading aura, pink and violet and salmon at the base, bleaching into colorlessness the further they stretched from the source, until the soft glow fuzzed and faded away. 

As the bracelet’s light dwindled, Ignis’ recollection returned. He remembered starting the performance, searching the crowd for Noctis’ face. He remembered disappointment, light and heart-felt as a sigh, that the young man was not there. And yet the trance of creation in Ignis gained momentum and speed with every song, until it felt like frenzy. Like lust. Ignis remembered weaving verses about a man with wings of paper and twine, a man flying too close to the Sun – and then it suddenly was all a blank, everything all at once and yet nothing, and the next thing he remembered was his back colliding with the wooden floor, his eyes staring up at the same single bare, grimy swinging light bulb that he’d seen time and time again. 

“I passed out,” he observed. It was not a question – he knew this for a fact already. Then he felt one moment of doubt and panic – hastily bringing his hand to his ear, feeling for the reassuring familiar curve and spikes of the ear cuff. It was still there, and Ignis swallowed his sigh of relief. Crowe let that slide, but only because she had even more scathing remarks in store for him. 

“You did. And nearly got trampled.” Before anyone could intervene to say that it was an exaggeration, she stormed on. “People wanted to get close to you, touch you. Touch the light. They would’ve ripped those fancy beads off of you, too, if Libertus hadn’t beaten them back with the bass.” Her eyes were a firestorm. Ignis felt a pang of guilt as it became clear he owed them more than a musical instrument. Had it really taken him so long to realize how pale Crowe was, livid and scared? Her anger drove at him like lashes. “So I ask you again, what are those cursed things, Ignis? I don’t know exactly what they are, but it’s plain enough that they’re magic. Anything that raw and elemental is bound to be dangerous. Is it worth it to risk your life – all of our lives – for a _gimmick_?”

“I didn’t know they do that,” he admitted. Ignorance didn’t plead his case any better, but he’d rather come clean about that and look stupid, than have his friends even suspect that he would put them in danger on purpose. “They’re—they were a gift.”

“From your mysterious black-haired admirer?” Crowe’s words were too sharp and Ignis looked up too fast. She rolled her eyes. “Please, Ignis. You’re not as subtle as you like to think you are. You’ve probably shouted his name over half the continent, asking about him at every rest stop and pestering every stranger the first chance you got. Even on the job, you’re obsessed about him where you used to be obsessed about figuring out the daemons and their territory. My guess is, he’s just as mysterious to you as he is to the rest of us. Is that right?”

Ignis opened his mouth to find he had no comeback. What could he say? Crowe had a point. No matter how diligently he searched for news of Noctis, it seemed he was always one step behind, chasing shadows. The young man still only showed up when it pleased him. Even though Ignis made careful notes of his comings and goings, there was still no predicting where Noctis would pop up next, or when. And yet, for his part, Noctis always seemed to know where Ignis would perform next, to ‘happen to be around’ when he visited. He knew exactly how far to stretch Ignis’ patience too – showing up exactly before Ignis would write him off as a fling, a one-night stand, even a dream, or an illusion. 

The last time Ignis had broached the topic of his past, Noctis had deflected his concerns with stories. And though Noctis did not ask much of him, it was hardly a fair trade – Noctis knew, from the start, that Ignis didn’t have much to offer in return. What he did have, he had already given away nonetheless, and what he received in return could hardly square the balance.

The entire affair appeared imprudent, from a practical point of view, and Ignis understood why Crowe would be concerned. And yet, it was probably the reason why Noctis drew Ignis to him so easily and completely. Even in a world of constant changes, stories of one’s past were still offered up to bargain for trust, companionship, or simply a brief glimpse into someone else’s life. They all needed a confirmation of shared experience, to know that an easier world really had existed, if not in their own memories, then in the memories of parents and grandparents, people who had really existed. Lacking that currency, Ignis found solace with Noctis, who didn’t ask for any of his experience, and offered none in response. 

And yet… It wasn’t like Noctis didn’t give him anything. He gave Ignis experiences just by being there, no matter how unreliable his schedule. Ignis thought back of that hot stifling afternoon, when Noctis had given him the bracelet. His hand was resting on Noctis’ knee then, and he could feel the tremor of Noctis’ delight as the young man tied the simple cord around Ignis’ wrist. Ignis remembered his breath, hot and ragged with anticipation, the coy but shy look Noctis sent him from under his lashes. The rabbit’s ears loop of the knot, like a childish promise.

Could something given with that much sweetness be meant for harm?

If Crowe could read his thoughts, he knew she would pity him for the love-struck fool that he was. Or maybe she already had. The fire was still in her eyes as she leaned over and hooked the tip of her knife under the bracelet. The sharp side of the blade merely held the cord up for a moment, as if hesitating from severing. The cold chill of metal where the blunt back nestle against the soft inside of Ignis’ wrist distracted him a little, but not enough. When Crowe’s blade flicked up, slicing the already-fraying cord, Ignis’ free hand was already held out. The beads fell, then, into his waiting palm. 

Ignis picked up the cord, threaded the beads back. One bead for every question still banging away inside his empty mind. After he’d finished, he tied the knot, and then just ran his fingers over the bracelet, feeling the questions return in an orderly fashion, almost like a prayer. Under the watchful eyes of his friends, he didn’t put the bracelet back on – not that he could, as with the knot tied it was too small to fit over his hand. But he nested it carefully in the inside pocket of his jacket, keeping it close to his heart. Crowe let him know she hadn’t missed that with one long, exasperated sigh. 

“Beware, Ignis,” she told him, eyes flicking toward his chest. Ignis suppressed the uncomfortable urge to check whether the beads were shining through his clothes. “Daemons can make lights, too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No story telling in this chapter, what an oversight.  
> The next one will more than make up for it!  
> Thank you for reading and a comment would light up my day!!!


	6. Chapter 6

When Ignis next found Noctis’ face in the crowd, he dropped the microphone. The flood of creation stopped. The beads were merely a dim glow in his pocket; weak, milky, pastel light smothered by the leather of his jacket. 

He nearly dove off the stage, parting the crowd in a frantic approach. At his back, Crowe watched. Ignis felt the intensity of her gaze and chose to ignore it. _Look at him_ , he thought fiercely, daring her to deny the righteousness of his actions. Daring her to speak up. 

Crowe held her peace.

Like most of the audience, Noctis was swaying, but not in time to the music, no. When Ignis reached him, Noctis could only stay on his feet long enough to give a smile – reassuring bordering on cocky, keeping up the sham that he was alright. As if Ignis was blind to all but his smile, as if anyone could miss the fact that his skin was ashen and his hair was rust. Just as easily as his pretense had shattered, Noctis toppled, his body folding against Ignis’ outstretched arms. He was so light, Ignis thought hysterically. He already knew this, of course, but in all the times he’d held Noctis in his arms, he’d never thought of the young man as insubstantial, the way he was now – as if he was on the verge of vanishing.

There was no time to lose. Even if the crowd had been shaken from their trance at this point, they still parted way for Ignis as he half-carried a limp Noctis out of the bar to the infirmary they had set up several blocks away. For all that he leaned his weight, insubstantial though it may be, on Ignis and dragged his feet, Noctis wasn’t unconscious. He muttered words of comfort that were as loud as rock slides in the storm of Ignis’ mind. Then he started to squirm, patting down his pockets with an urgency that Ignis’ reprimands did nothing to quell. Noctis only stopped when he finally found what he was looking for: a string of beads, which he drew from his pocket and dropped around Ignis’ neck.

Ignis could only ignore them for so long. After he’d gently laid Noctis down on a cot and handed him over to a nurse, after he’d tried to hang around only to be sent out – the nurse’s curt dismissal betrayed by a kernel of pity in her voice, after he’d stood trembling in front of the closed door for long enough to realize that no amount of soulful staring would get it to open before the nurse was done – only then, did the reality of the situation started to sink in. He realized how ridiculous he must look – still wearing his show leather jacket with the spiked shoulders, gold ear cuff glinting even in the dull lighting, smudged gold paint under his eyes and smudged blood on his cheeks, opals of milky light against his heart, pearls around his neck.

His numb fingers closed around the pearls, feeling them one by one. His fingertips could feel scores and marks on seemingly smooth surfaces, like groves on a record, except these groves were less forthcoming to yield the secrets they held. No matter how many times Ignis’ fingers begged to read them, they remained mute and wholly secretive. 

Except—Had they already been glowing like that, when Noctis had given them to him?

*

“You’re not wearing them.”

Noctis’ voice split the dark. Ignis looked up, but his fingers knew the rhythm well by now. Without missing a beat, they continued to run through the longer strand of beads. Counting, praying. 

To save energy, the lone LED light in the room barely gave off any light at all, and so even the faint pearlescent glow of the rosary in his hand was made evident. But it wasn’t always so tame and dim. Earlier, Ignis had lost himself in thoughts once – fear for Noctis, apprehension of Crowe’s warning, uncertainty for the future all mixed together – and the beads in his hands had felt lighter every second, as if by giving up their substance they could disintegrate into a blaze. Ignis had caught himself just in time, dropping the beads just before they’d exploded into light like the other ones had done at his latest show. Even on the ground they had refused to extinguish immediately. Ignis had to wait a while for them to dim, but despite being wary of their strange and unpredictable temper, he still picked them up again, as his hands were desperate for something to keep them occupied. 

By the time Noctis woke, Ignis had learned to keep his mind on safe topics as he counted the beads, and, unbidden but not unwelcomed, the words of Noctis’ stories returned to keep him company in his vigil. 

“How are you feeling?” Ignis asked, reaching over to turn the lamp a little higher. Noctis squinted, as if that little extra light was enough to trouble his vision. The expression animated his features and made him not so dreadfully still anymore, but his cheeks were still pale as snow – almost, Ignis mused, a shade paler than the bandages that wrapped around his forehead. The edges of the cut on his cheek pulled apart slightly, ragged and bloodless. His lips were a wasteland of peeling dry skin, and Ignis leaned forward to pour a glass of water, offering it to Noctis with a straw. As he did so he got a better view of Noctis’ chest, where a thick layer of bandages tried to smother the wound there. Even with Noctis lying still, with each labored breath he drew it seemed to Ignis that the bandages became more soaked with freshly wept blood. 

And yet, Noctis smiled as he gazed up at Ignis.

“Been better,” he rasped, a trace of his usual bravado in his whistling, reed-thin voice. “I was careless,” he admitted, planning ahead, trying to diffuse Ignis’ baffled anger in the face of overdone flippancy. “This will lay me out for a while. I was lucky to get out of it alive, too.”

“And you did it for this,” Ignis said quietly, holding up the beads. They winked as they caught additional light, droplets of crystal dripping from his hand and wrist. 

“So I did,” Noctis admitted, acknowledging it without blinking. “And you’re not even wearing them.”

“Crowe feared the stain of wild magic—of daemon magic,” Ignis spat. He had not meant to mention it so artlessly, but he was scared. He’d been hurt to see Noctis half ruined, barely clinging to life, not yet out of the grasp of death. He felt violated at being made to feel this way. He wanted to hurt Noctis in turn, but the young man took the blow unflinchingly, and it infuriated Ignis even more. “And do you think—do you think me so shallow that I’d enjoy some—some _trinkets_ that you traded for with your blood?”

“Ignis,” Noctis cut him off before he finished his sentence. His eyes were so blue in his too-gaunt face, and Ignis was distracted from his anger just seeing them. “Have I ever told you about the Sun’s second lover?”

Just like that his indignation was subdued. Ignis, caught off guard, could not speak for a moment. When he found his voice it was only to scoff, half bewildered and half amused. “Noctis.” He closed his tired eyes, pinched the bridge of his nose. “I’m not a child to be distracted with stories. And that was the worst opening you have made yet.” He looked at Noctis now. “You know very well that you haven’t told me that story. But, I don’t know.” He touched his chin, as if deep in thought. “The mood has been so completely ruined by that terrible rhetorical question, I don’t know if I can muster the interest—"

“Humor me,” Noctis returned, eyes twinkling. He knew he had won already, the little brat, and he even dared a pout to claim complete victory. “Come on. I’m bleeding out on what might be my sickbed for months to come. Let me tell my story.”

“Very well,” Ignis relented. He even faked a long-suffering sigh so that their charade was even more complete. He knew he would give in to Noctis’ whim eventually, but he had taken remarkably little convincing. Crowe was right after all – he was helpless against this man. He would probably summon daemons with his own hands if he thought that was what Noctis wanted. Setting light to some magical trinkets seemed pathetically trivial compared to that. “Who did the Sun love next, Noctis?”

The words felt fatal the moment they left Ignis’ lips. For a moment, he regretted having spoken them so lightly. There was a sensation of déjà-vu, intensified by a trick of the flickering light that made Ignis feel as if he was falling into a well, but backwards. Noctis’ eyes sought his and Ignis fastened his own gaze there, warding off the sinister feeling. 

“They met each other at one of the Sky’s parties,” Noctis said, his voice merely a slender thread of a whisper. “The Sky spent most of his time in his cottage, living a simple life – minding his sheep, then coming back to straighten his legs before his hearth, with Thunder and Lightning dozing away at his feet. He minded his sheep so well that, over the years, the wool that he’d shorn from the clouds started stacking so high they formed a solid block, white as snow and smooth as marble, over a nice hill overlooking his flowering meadows.” Noctis smiled. “Those of the gods who were interested in pretty things saw the potentials in that white block, even when it was in the rough. They asked the Sky’s permission to come in and look, and after some persuading, he let them carve the marble hill into a palace. It took a long time, but the Gods had many years to spare. The marble palace accumulated more and more sculpture, and after some polishing, the wide expanse of floor became extremely suitable for dancing. The Sky’s halls quickly became a popular spot for the gods to gather, and the Sky does like people – but only from time to time. Mostly, he enjoys the dancing.”

“A shepherd wearing rough wool, a winged one, and now a gracious host and a dancer,” Ignis observed. He enjoyed hearing about the Sky enough that he didn’t feel too impatient about the long setting up. He would find out about the elusive Sun and his second lover, in due time. “Your Sky is a god of many facets, indeed.”

“Well, if the only way in which he’s multi-faceted is in the way he kept his lovers, it would be a little too convenient, wouldn’t it?” Noctis returned, a smile tugging at his wan lips. Only then did Ignis remember himself and leaned in with another offer of water, which Noctis accepted gratefully. “Now the Sun, he doesn’t much like people. At first, it was only that he shines so bright, nothing can come too close to him without burning or blinding themselves. Over time, the Sun grew used to keeping his distance, and eventually, he started to enjoy his solitude. But he favored the Sky still, and since it was the Sky who tendered the invitation, he agreed to make an appearance at the Sky’s party to celebrate the end of summer.”

Noctis’ eyes were wide and bright as he continued to speak, and for a moment Ignis felt something like annoyance. Here was a man whom Ignis had come to care about deeply, who’d gone on a fool’s errand to collect some magic glowy beads, and now he was speaking so lovingly of some god in some made-up mythology? It was ridiculous to feel this way – jealous over a fictional character, but even as he berated himself Ignis couldn’t deny two things: the first thing being the rapturous expression on Noctis’ face, and the second was how acutely Ignis was wishing it was directed at him instead. 

Oblivious to Ignis’ distress, Noctis went on singing praises to his imaginary rival. “The Sun is the oldest of the gods, except for maybe the Lord of the Dark. But while the Dark made a reputation out of fear, the Sun just—draws people to him, for all that his light and heat are too fierce for some to bear. He’s the giver of fire, keeper of light. Without him, nothing can thrive except for the daemons – as I’m sure you’ve noticed,” Noctis said wryly, and Ignis hid a smile as he nodded. He was relieved that Noctis added that remark – it said he was aware of the real state of the world and not completely submerged in his fiction. “In his primal form the Sun is too vast to be contained, even in the Sky’s domain. But for the party, he made himself more approachable. He tempered the forge of his heart, and let the Sky wrap him in lovely robes made of cloud-wool, embellished with gold, which was tribute from the deep Earth, who had only that substance to compare to the Sun’s brilliance. Even so diminished, the Sun’s mortal form was stunning to behold. He was grace personified – long limbs, golden skin, the poise and elegance of a ruler. He was also a very good dancer, enough so that only the Sky can keep up with him most of the time, but he was not so selfish that he would make the Sky entertain him and him alone, at his party. So they shared one dance, then the Sun left the Sky to delight his guests with the party tricks he is ever so fond of. For his part, the Sun went out to the balcony outside the manor, enjoying some fresh air—and the novelty of the soothing dark.”

That seemed to Ignis like a behavior to invite trouble, but he said nothing aloud. He was preoccupied by something else. He had so easily constructed the Sky’s broad, generous features, the Stars’ lean, quick fairness – needing only a few hints of their description. Even the Lord of the Dark, a figure mentioned so far only in passing, sparked something like recognition, even if it was more in the form of an impression than something as concrete as a face and a name. But the Sun remained firmly out of Ignis’ reach. As Noctis described him – in loving detail, as Ignis had not failed to note – all Ignis could visualize was a glow behind a thick, milky, low-hanging cloud. Featureless and silhouette-less, he was less than an idea in Ignis’ mind. Somehow it gave him a sense of unease, and to cover it he resorted to bluster and distraction. “Let me guess. Without his light the Sun was defenseless, and the daemons ambushed him, and his would-be lover came to the rescue?”

If Noctis was at all offended by his dismissiveness, he didn’t show it. “Nothing as dramatic as that!” he laughed, shifting on the bed. “The Sun is far from defenseless. Well, for now.” He lapsed into silence then. The moment dragged on until Ignis half-believed he’d lost Noctis to whatever intrigues he was spinning in his unknowable mind, but then Noctis snapped himself back to reality, just like he had snapped out of whatever painful trance the reminder of his injury had induced. When he spoke next, the energetic cheerfulness had returned to his voice, as it ever had been there when he told his stories. “Well, let’s see. You’re not too far off the mark, you know. The one who came upon the Sun was a dark one, indeed. But one of the later creations, like the Stars, lucky enough to be given a mind of his own. Young, curious, fearless in his innocence—you know the type.” Noctis’ rueful laughter was self-deprecating in ways that Ignis couldn’t begin to make sense of. “He had never seen the Sun before, and for all that the Lord of the Dark had warned him to stay away, he never really believed how quickly the Sun’s flames could consume him and the feathers of his dark wings.”

Noctis’ eyes were on him as he continued to speak, his face rapt with reverence. Like he, too, had never seen Ignis before. It was the only reassurance Ignis had that this story was not turning into a tragedy, ending with a living pyre. “The Sun was the finest thing that the young darkling had ever seen.” Noctis’ words were a caress of little glass beads, falling, falling into the depth of the dark. Revealing too much, and too little, as he was already changing the topic. “It’s not that the land of the Dark doesn’t contain beautiful things. The Dark where he was born could be quite wondrous, if one could only get past its cruel guardians. But the Lord of the Dark is protective of his creatures in all the wrong ways. After he saw how the rest of the world prosecuted his first children, however good the reason, he never shared his creations anymore. The only ones he ever allowed to see the world were the Stars and this, this other young darkling, and—considering how quickly that made him lose them, well… he was probably right to be wary.”

Ignis, for his part, had no interest in the agonizing of some old gods. He felt impatient even, as if he was being forced to hear some old griping that he’d heard far too many times before. More importantly, all this talk gave him an itch he could not scratch. He felt like he was very close to something, if he could only reach out and take it. “This other young darkling,” he asked, not bothering to hide his eagerness. “What was his name?”

Noctis hesitated. For a second, Ignis thought it meant he didn’t know, and was incredulous. Didn’t the story-tellers deign to name such a central character? But then Noctis looked up and Ignis read not uncertainty, neither hesitation in his eyes – but breathless determination. Like a man who’s made up his mind to cast a call into the pitch dark, knowing full well it would draw the attention of monsters, yet having no choice but to do so, in order to be reunited with whatever else the dark had taken from him. He drew in a breath, and Ignis was drawn in by the way he wetted his lips with his tongue, the way his lips parted for a second, quivering, before he finally gave up his secret.

“His name. Was the Moon.”

_The Moon._

It was amazing, how a single word crashed into Ignis’ mind in an explosion of images. Eyes, blue as the sky just after dark. Hair, black as ink, the same silky softness as the wings – torrents of black feathers bursting from each delicate shoulder blade. A guileless, innocent, intelligent face, peeking out from the dark foliage of an elderly tree, peering down at him. 

It took Ignis a moment to remember where he really was. Sitting in these darkened ruins of an infirmary, looking upon Noctis’ face while his mind constructed wild visions. He would’ve liked a moment to compose himself, to shake himself loose from the cobwebs of these images. To remember who he was – but hadn’t he always complained that he didn’t know who that was? Why, then, was he so reluctant to find out? Why did he think he was finding himself in those stories in the first place? But the feelings the words had sparked in him were undeniable, and Ignis had never felt anything so intensely outside of his songs. He felt it still, almost drowning in the intoxicating realness, as Noctis’ story continued steadily, inescapably , bringing on a tide of memories as surely as Ignis had thought he’d lost them.

“The Moon thought he was well hidden on his perch among the trees,” Noctis whispered. “But the Sun sensed him quickly. When the Sun beckoned for him to come down, he was abashed of his trespass, but quite unafraid. The Lord of the Dark had warned him so often about the Sun, but about this one thing the Lord must be wrong, because the Sun was so gentle. Even after he’d inquired about the Moon’s origins, and learned that he was a creature of the Dark, he didn’t treat the Moon any differently. Instead, he only expressed his regrets over his disagreement with the Dark. ‘We don’t always see eye to eye, your Lord and I,’ he said. From what the Moon had heard from his Lord, that was a vast understatement, and a very polite one, too.”

A pang of loss resonated in Ignis at the sound of these words. The Lord of the Dark, the stubborn brother of the light. The Sun had a soft spot for him still, surely, after centuries of quarrels, if only in respect of his love for the daemon children that he was so proud of – never mind that those children spread death and despair where mortal children spread joys and laughter. Did the Dark love his daemons despite their faults, or because of them? Had he already felt lonely in their company, and tried to mend them? After all, his newest creations, the Moon and the Stars, were bestowed with the ability to feel compassion, awe and wonder at beauty, and curiosity and the thirst for exploration. He doted on them enough that he saw their leaving him as a betrayal.

Ignis was lost in his own thoughts, but Noctis’ words thrummed a chord in him all the same. His entire being was drinking them in, claiming what he had lost. “When the Sun’s fingers carded through the feathers of the Moon’s dark wings, they didn’t burn.” The song-maker in Ignis sensed the coming of poetry, the kind that came straight from one’s heart. Noctis’ voice wavered, and Ignis knew he felt it too. “Instead, they lit up in a hundred prismatic colors – pigments hidden in feathers, colors concealed by the dark. They had always been there, but that the Moon himself had never been taught to see. Standing there with the Sun’s hands on him and these extraordinary gifts that the Sun gave, without seeming to expect anything in return, the Moon was filled with gratitude… and sadness. It wasn’t fair, he thought, that someone so kind was so lonely, because of his reputation as Scorcher, Pyre-maker. It wasn’t fair that his lovely eyes were so melancholic. And when the music started again, the young Moon had grown bold. He thought he could fix it, you see. He asked the Sun for a dance.”

“Stop,” Ignis begged. He wasn’t quite sure where the plea had come from. His hands were closed fists around the beads and the earcuff—when had he even taken it off? The spikes dug into his flesh sharply, as painful as the memory--? Was _this_ it? The memory that he’d craved for so long? The tale of a downfall?

“They danced together on the balcony,” Noctis continued. How could he sound at the same time so happy and so sad? Why did the story feel so tender yet at the same time its telling was so filled with grim determination, almost like a punishment? “The Moon, not quite aware of his privilege, danced standing on the Sun’s feet, at first. Then, once he’d memorized the steps and learned to pluck out the count of one… and two… and three… from the harmony of the music, he started to invent his own moves. He took to flitting around with small flutters of his wings, exaggerating the spins. The Sun didn’t seem to mind, as he was laughing with his entire body – even if he still made no sound. The Moon didn’t mind, he had laughter enough for the both of them. At least… until the Lord of the Dark called out to him, wondering where he’d ran off to.”

And just like that, the story ended. Hard to do otherwise, because the lone light in the room suddenly went out. It wasn’t just their room, either. Outside the window, Ignis could see the usually ever-present floodlights had been smothered by the thick, waxy darkness. Human screams came first, the frantic rallying of Hunters as they tried to figure out what was wrong with the floodlights or the generators. Failing that, they were already shouting orders to prepare retreat, to take people to shelters.

From outside the town, the daemons took up the chorus.

They, too, had heard the call of the Lord of the Dark.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed the long chapter! It really gave me room to reveal some things (to end with a cliffhanger eyes emoji.  
> If you enjoyed reading please leave a comment, it'll keep me going to the end! Thank you!


	7. Chapter 7

It was not the first time that Lestallum’s electricity had faltered. From memory Ignis could recall two separate occasions where the aging generators had hiccupped, leaving the town steeped in – not even fear, fear of the dark was routine to them now, but rather a heightened state of alertness and a sense of anxiety. But those events had been mechanical failures. There had been contingencies. Even with the main generators out of commission, there were still smaller ones powering key locations. Instead of the floodlights, they’d had a high-powered searchlight powered by battery packs that they dispatched sparingly and with the precision of a sniper rifle, to discourage the packs of daemons that came sniffing. All working vehicles had been rounded up around the wall, headlights blazing to paint one last barrier against the encroaching dark. And inside the safe houses, dim candle light could still be relied on to shine over blueprints strewn on workbenches, over which their engineers labored to bring the ailing generators back to life.

No matter what they did, daemons would be toeing the perimeter. Ignis remembered they had come close enough for the acrid smoke of their breaths to hang like smog over the town. Teams of hunters went out to drive them back, and some never returned. It shocked no one, though – they had all expected loss. In the end, what mattered was that Lestallum prevailed. 

This? This was nothing like either of these times. 

It felt as if the dark engulfed them from overhead, casting over them like a net to trap them in place. There was something so uncanny about the insidiousness of it that nobody would mistake it for a routine malfunction. The electricity went out, even as the generators carried on working, guzzling gasoline and spitting out smoke. The lights just refused to switch on, torch lights even exploding in the hands of people who tried to shake them. Anywhere light was supposed to be, there was just tar-like, pitch-like darkness, smothering it before a spark was even born.

“What’s going on?” Ignis asked, shooting up from his chair, and immediately berated himself for how foolish and useless that question was, how small and scared he felt. As if invoked by their talk, the Dark had stepped from the story that Noctis was telling him into the real world he inhabited, and the transition – or lack thereof – was jarring. The shouts of people filled his hearing for a moment, enough that he took a moment to notice closer, more innocuous sounds: the soft swish of a blanket being pushed back, the whisper of bare feet against linoleum tiles, and last of all, heavy shuffling footsteps coupled with gasps of pain and increasingly labored breathing. “Noctis? What are you doing?”

Not that it sounded any less stupid, but Ignis had to try. An answer, any answer, must be better than the ceaseless wondering of this silence. No, it was worse than silence. It was this night-sphere holding in it plenty of sounds, none of which amounted to an answer. It made the beats of Ignis’ heart accelerate, cold sweat piercing his skin in a primal fear he thought he’d gotten used to, after years of making his home in the dark.

Ignis breathed more easily when he felt Noctis’ hand in the crook of his arm, and he clung on tight, clinging, wordlessly begging Noctis to stay there. Unbidden, Crowe’s warning came back, and Ignis felt a moment of wild terror. What if it wasn’t Noctis? What if there hadn’t been any Noctis at all, just a daemon, and now Ignis was standing around in the pitch black holding its hand for some kind of blind comfort? 

“We need to get you out of here,” Noctis said, and that shook Ignis from his paranoia. Noctis spoke with a confidence that he clearly didn’t feel – and no daemon could possibly manage that feat of acting. Ignis felt Noctis’ hand came up to touch the earcuff – still clutched in Ignis’ grip. Then he gathered it all up, earcuff, dangling pearls and all, into Ignis’ palms, closing his fingers around them. Only then Ignis realized that the last of the glow from the beads had died down, and the only thing that reassured Ignis they were the same pearls capable of such brilliance was the feel of their strangely warm smoothness. “You need to keep them safe. You have a zipper on your pocket?”

Noctis didn’t wait for an answer. He checked himself, and, satisfied with the practical aspect of Ignis’ show leather jacket, he shoved pearls and spiked earcuff in there, his movement precise despite the darkness surrounding them. And then he was hurrying Ignis along, at the same time leading him forward and leaning on him for support. “Let’s get out of here.”

“Wait, Noctis. I—” Why was he resisting? Ignis knew very well the urgency of the situation. Delay for one second and they could end up dead. All the material possessions that he cared about in the world were in his pocket, and really, shouldn’t he be more worried about Crowe, Nyx, and Libertus, whom he had not seen since his hasty exit from the show? Shouldn’t he care more about the people inside the bar, who’d traveled to hear him sing and hadn’t even received a performance worth their troubles, and who now found themselves stranded here in the middle of mortal danger? Or maybe, thought Ignis hysterically, the same thing was happening everywhere in the world, and it didn’t really matter where people were at this very moment? Could it be that all of Eos was trapped in the dark, from which none of them would emerge the same as they had come?

“Ignis, I know you’re upset, but we have to go.” Noctis’ voice was pleading. He was leaning his weight against Ignis, trying to make him budge. Unbalanced, Ignis took one staggering step – and that was enough to kick start the rest of his instincts, get his limbs back into gear. He started walking blindly, knowing they were heading towards the exit only by the subtle cues of Noctis’ body. His head was clearing, too, his thoughts forming now without too much resistance. He noticed, for instance, how Noctis seemed to have no trouble seeing where he was leading Ignis, but he didn’t bring his observation up for now. Instead, he focused on another thought that he’d managed to pluck out from the tangles of his mind – the reason why he was so reluctant to leave the scene. 

“You haven’t finished telling the story,” Ignis said as they emerged from the infirmary into the courtyard. He was aware of how completely ridiculous such a concern was, even before it was spoken aloud, especially considering the chaos that was just about _exploding_ around them. Several people were crowded around a van trying to coax it to start. Nurses and doctors were fretting desperately over the patients whose lives were sustained by machinery, recruiting others to hand-pump and hand-crank squeaky portable devices just to keep a heart beating or a lung from collapsing. If the town fell, Ignis found himself thinking with alarming detachment, some of those lives that had been so hard-won and guarded so jealously would become wasted. The wounded and dying who didn’t make it to the van would be left behind, or perhaps all of them would remain here, if the vehicle still refused to start. 

Noctis was quiet as he ushered Ignis past it all. Were they heading towards the wall, where defenses were being mounted, where all able-bodied hunters were supposed to be? Belatedly Ignis remembered that Noctis was still very much hurt, and had no business defending the town. But really, was staying behind with the wounded the better option at this point? His feet must have dragged for a moment as he tried to throw a useless glance over his shoulder, and Noctis read his thoughts like an open book. “The dark won’t hurt me,” he reassured him, and Ignis wanted to scoff, to tell him how a childish mantra wouldn’t save him. Ignis could recite without faltering the names of all the Hunters who had ever said that, and then gone on and died anyway. Besides, given Noctis’ state, hadn’t the dark hurt him already?

But he found himself unable to form words. Noctis plowed on, and he only stopped when Ignis was close enough for his hands to feel the smooth if dusty form of a car – Noctis’ car? He realized, again belatedly, again another oversight – that he had never seen it before. How had he thought Noctis had come and gone to all of his performances? With what wings? Noctis all but shoved him in the driver’s seat, and there should be a beep of warning, the sense of wrongness mounting. But Ignis was still mute as he felt Noctis reach over him from where he was still standing outside of the car to turn the key. 

It did absolutely nothing at all. 

Noctis cursed. Ignis heard the shuffle of his footsteps as he went around to climb in on the passenger’s side. His hand brushed against Ignis’ leg as he shimmied the casing open, and then Ignis felt the spill of wires springing free, heard the glove box being yanked out of place, tools being shuffled around, the snip of a cutter. How Noctis managed to find his way in the tangle was no longer a question – he simply _had_ to be able to see in the dark. It didn’t matter much to Ignis how. Ignis was thinking, inappropriately, of all the times they’d lain together, limbs entangled and the light turned off. He’d assumed they’d been equally safe from the other’s scrutiny then, but he had been wrong. Ignis found he was even relieved by this fact, since it gave a little more credibility to Noctis’ claim that the dark wouldn’t hurt him. 

Even so, as he tried and failed to bully a spark out from the cut and stripped wires, Noctis spoke in a voice tinged with fear where it had held none before. “You have to get out of here. You can’t be here when _he_ comes.”

“Noctis?” Ignis said. It seemed it was the only thing he remembered how to say. He hated how wheedling it sounded, but something deep inside him nagged at him to press, because it was important. “What about that story?” 

Ignis had thought he had made something of himself, that he was no longer the man who’d woken up naked and afraid on a beach of black water. But not much had changed at all. He was sitting here useless as Noctis struggled to save, not them both, no, because Ignis had heard enough to know Noctis didn’t intend to make his escape with him. He didn’t know what Noctis intended, nor what he thought he might achieve if he stayed behind, but it was clear that he meant to save Ignis, and Ignis alone. 

Noctis seemed to feel the discomfort in the tension of his body, and the wild hummingbird’s wings flutter of his heart. He paused, and a soft, warm breath brushing against his jaw indicated to Ignis that Noctis was looking up at him. Next came a kiss, quick and urgent, because Noctis then immediately returned to his work. But at least – Ignis realized with relief – Noctis now allowed his voice to keep him company. 

“Yes, the story,” he agreed. The fear had been wiped from his voice. They could have been anywhere else. They could have been on the pier at Galdin Quay, laughing over the mess of their spilled dinner. They could’ve been in Ignis’ apartment, murmuring quietly over the buzz of the central generator. They could have been lying in a wide open field with a blue horizon spreading around them, listening to the distant barks of Thunder. They definitely didn’t have to be here, trying to plead with this carcass of a car to please wake up and take them away from danger. Ignis’ heart quieted at the effect of three little words. “It’d be a shame not to tell you the rest, now that I’m so close to the end, wouldn’t it? I’m not used to this, you know. I’ve never had such an appreciative audience before.” 

The chuckle was a caress over Ignis’ skin. Before he could fret about what Noctis meant about ‘the end’, the story had begun. “So the Sun met the Moon for the first time at the Sky’s party. I suppose you could say the Sky was guilty of enabling them to meet again and again, even if he probably did it with his own interest in mind. The Moon was best friends with the Stars, and you didn’t see one without the other most of the time. So, after the Sky had saved the Stars from the daemons, when he’d invited the Stars to seek shelter in his domains whenever needed, his invitation naturally had to include the Moon.” 

Noctis let out another chuckle, almost embarrassed on behalf of the characters. “The Moon didn’t even know that the Sun spent most of his free time at the Sky’s cottage, enjoying the calm and comfort of his easy company. The first time he’d made use of the Sky’s invitation, the Moon found another danger awaited him in the Sky’s domains: the Clouds. The sheep were obsessed with soft things, you know – they wanted his feathers for their nests. The Moon wouldn’t have minded giving them the ones he’d shed, but there were too many sheep, and the latter comers were starting to show interest in the feathers still attached to his wings. It was a gruesome tug of war, I tell you, a smallish Moon in the middle and a bunch of soft, buoyant sheep tugging at either end of his wings. The Sky was too busy fawning over the Stars to notice, and the Moon by then was resigned to a death by sheep-piling, until the Sun heroically rescued him.”

“Quite an entrance,” Ignis found himself saying. Despite the fear still paralyzing most of him, he felt the muscles on his face starting to loosen. There was even the beginning of a smile. “A mighty God, dashing out from a shepherd’s cottage, bravely fending off a herd of fluffy sheep—”

“And while wearing a glorified blanket!” Noctis added, following up without missing a beat. He sounded like he was smiling. “The Sky has too much wool for just his cloak, as big and long as that cloak needs to be. So he made all the beddings and blankets in his house out of clouds, and there was one just for the Sun, extra-large so he could wrap himself in it, and it dimmed his light just enough for him not to burn anyone’s eyes.” They shared a chuckle, and Noctis continued with his story as if Ignis had not interrupted him at all. “After he was untangled and the shock of being attacked by a bunch of blood-thirsty sheep wore off, the Moon was overjoyed to recognize his savior. He had kind of resigned himself to never see the Sun again. In fact, after having made all kinds of subtle investigations, he’d learned that the Sun was a bit of a hermit, that his chance of running into the Sun at another party was very low, and he had been quite heartbroken.”

He chuckled then. It sounded as if his heart was still broken, despite the cheerful tone of the story. Ignis didn’t need to see his face to know it would have the far-away expression of reminiscence. “The Sky’s domain became their haven,” Noctis continued, after a pause. Ignis caught sight of a tiny arc of a spark in the dark, but the engine remained stubbornly quiet. “No daemon ventured so far to bother them, not that the Sun couldn’t dismiss them with a look. But he’d rather not have to, as he had so many things to share with the Moon. They walked together for hours on the open field, the Moon telling stories of adventures he’d had with the Stars, and the Sun provided the commentary and explained any detail that the Moon was still puzzling over. In turn, the Sun spoke of distant places that the Moon had never been to before.” 

Another spark, and now they could hear the first hiccup from the engine. But Noctis seemed too distracted to even make a noise of triumph. In fact, Ignis realized, he’d stopped working altogether. He heard the wisp of a noise when the wires Noctis had been trying to cajole into cooperation slipped from his slack fingers. “Noct?” Alarmed, Ignis asked, suddenly all too aware of Noctis’ pain and injuries. But Noctis only gathered Ignis’ hands in his, and he squeezed them almost forcefully before he pressed them to his cheeks. 

“I’m alright.” His voice was watery though, and all of Ignis’ senses were aflame with concern. Had he ever seen Noctis cry? But before he could even say anything, Noctis had resumed his story. “When they—when they were far enough removed from everything and everyone else, enough to not cause any harm, the Sun would peel off part of his blanket—or cloak, if you will.” How they both managed a chuckle was a miracle Ignis didn’t think he would ever replicate. “He would allow the Moon a glimpse of his golden hair. Then, over the canvas that provided the Sky, he would show the Moon colors. It was this experience, more than all the stories, that taught the Moon there were more in the world than what he’d been allowed to see in the realm of the dark. As the Sun showed him rainbows and colors, he taught the Moon wonders. He taught the Moon what it meant to be alive.”

“I know,” Ignis whispered. He didn’t know where the words had come from, but a surge of emotions was threatening to choke him if he didn’t make at least some of it known. They seemed utterly out of place: serenity, calm, admiration, and perhaps a touch of admiration for youthful enthusiasm, adoration for naivety. He saw Noctis’ face in front of him – like the Moon must have been seen through the Sun’s veil of clouds, skin so pale and eyes so blue, so vivid and alive. It took Ignis a while to realize it wasn’t just a vision – he really _could_ see now, even if he was still confused as to how. It was only until Noctis leaned forward, unzipped Ignis’ pocket, and pulled out the string of pearls, that the answer suddenly made itself clear. 

The pearls, again, were glowing.

It was nothing like the milky, opaque light that had trickled from the beads during his prayers. It was also nothing like the blast of light that was uncontrolled and uncontained, that could cause so many catastrophes. When Noctis held the beads up for him to examine, Ignis saw that they were _radiant_. There was a halo of light around them, refracting in shards of colors. With every pulse, the light seemed to grow a little further, and the rays warmed whatever they touched. 

Noctis pressed his lips to the pearls reverently, and Ignis’ heart ached. The smile that Noctis gave when he looked up at him was perfectly open, transparent in its innocence, and so very trusting. As if he believed Ignis would make everything alright. “When they parted, after that second meeting, at the edge of the Sky’s meadow, the Sun gave the Moon a bit of his light,” he whispered. “It was a promise, to reassure the Moon that it was not the last time they would see each other. And he continued to do so, every single time that they met. The Moon protested at first, saying the Sun needn’t bribe him for his company, and either way if someone had to pay it was him, for the pleasure of the Sun’s company and the lessons the Sun had taught him. The Sun replied—” Noctis’ voice wavered, and Ignis saw another spark – this time, it was a light caught in the tear at the corner of his eye. “The Sun told him it was not so. That the Moon was the one who’d taught him to see the world—in a whole new way.”

“Without you, I don’t know who I am,” Ignis heard himself whisper softly. It was true, too. For all that the Moon was made from the dark, it was him who taught the Sun all about light. The light had become something that everyone took for granted, mortals and Gods alike. But not the Moon. Every color he saw was as wondrous as the last. Every ray of light, a marvel. Each modicum of warmth absorbed by the folds of his black feathers was returned tenfold, in the beam of his smile, and the delight of his face. For the Sun, seeing his own light reflected upon the Moon’s visage was like seeing it for the first time. 

And the next things that happened—Well. They were simultaneously in slow-motion, his senses picking up on some details with excruciating clarity, while the rest went too fast for his mind to grasp. He saw Noctis’ smile become even softer. He saw Noctis’ lips parted, perhaps ready to speak, or perhaps preparing for a kiss. And then, suddenly, the glass of the windshield shattered. Tendrils of darkness shot through the cracks, snatching Noctis, pulling him right out of the protective dome of light conjured up by his pearls. Ignis choked on a shout. He meant to call to Noctis, reach out for him, jump over the seat to find him outside the car – but all of these possibilities were thwarted. The darkness wrapped around the car, began to bear down. With a horrible noise of metal rending, it crushed the car like an empty can, with Ignis inside it. 

And yet, amidst all the cacophony, the sound of a man’s voice was louder than life itself. It wrapped around him, like the dark where it came from. “Brother,” it said. “How wonderful, to meet you again here, after all this time.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you guys like cliffhangers because here's another one :'P   
> But good news is I've finished working on this fic! It's only a matter of typing it up and running it through my lovely editor https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kika988 (seriously, check out her stuffs if you like Voltron) so the updates should be coming up pretty quickly.  
> I hope you'll enjoy it and don't forget to leave me a comment if my evil deeds have touched your fragile hearts >:D


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> soft warning for major injury to character, eye injury  
> i don't think it was graphic but if you think anything else must be tagged please tell me

He couldn’t breathe.

It was the dark, surely. Nothing else could explain the weight he felt now, tight as a fist clenching down around his lungs, squeezing them like a sponge. His skull ached as if it was under a vice, and there was this pressure against the back of his eyeballs that was terrifying. It must be the dark - countless tendrils of the substance invading him, worming under his skin, trying to pry him loose of his own body so they could finally take over what remained of an already half-empty shell. 

Ignis felt a tug on his wrist, persistent enough to break through the haze of pain that had overridden his body. It was so innocuous, almost playful. It felt like when Noctis used to pull on his sleeve when he wanted Ignis’ attention. No matter what Ignis was doing, just one second of attention was enough. Given the slightest opportunity, Noctis knew exactly how to hook and reel him in, and he would succeed every time, because well, what could Ignis possibly have to do that was more important than kissing him?

His consciousness returned. Not all at once, but in trickles. Slowly, it built itself up enough to remind him of other things he should be feeling beyond this haze of pain. His nerves were set alight with urgency as a baser part of his instincts kicked in to remind him that he was not getting enough air to breathe in this confined space. Another part, lodged in yet a deeper, older part of him, thrashed like a bird caught in a thorn bush. _Where is Noctis?_

Ignis opened his eyes to realize that he still could see. The way he was curled up inside the crushed car, there was somehow a tiny cavern of space where the metal refused to fold. It was the air in this pocket that he had been breathing for the last several minutes. His arm was folded at an awkward angle, his hand with the palm turned up seeming to hold up the roof of the car, but Ignis hardly felt like a man strong enough to achieve this feat at all. All this he saw from the light of the beads that still dangled from his wrist. They were all there, the shorter strand that Noctis had first given him that had caused so much fear and doubt, and the longer one that seemed to have been catalyst of all these events. They were still as beautiful as they had been only seconds ago – Or had it been longer? Hours? Days? Ignis had no time to panic, as he finally focused on what it was that was making the tugging motion. 

It was the dark, pure and simple. A tendril of it, slick and glistening, its color an eerie translucent black, waved around to display the faintest spots of pink light lurking under the surface. A primal appendage, it had found its way here to wrap its slimy grasp around the beads of light, clumsily trying to work the strand free. The attempt was pathetic. The tentacle stumbled along stupidly, unable to figure out how to unwind the simple loops, bumping along blindly as it repeated the motion, just as uselessly, from another angle. Ignis could almost feel sorry for it if he hadn’t been worried that the cord holding the beads together might fray and snap any moment. When the tentacle tried to repeat another cycle of touch, feel, and tug, Ignis snatched his hand away from it – as much as he could in the limited space, anyway – and let out a soft, defiant snarl.

All hell broke loose.

The air was immediately filled with an unholy screeching. The sound was like thousands of needles piercing directly into Ignis’ eardrums. It was literally all around him, enveloping him. It was the screech of metal on metal as the car, crushed around Ignis like a metal sarcophagus, was being unfolded, as easily as foil around a piece of gum. The dark, the slimy tentacle that Ignis had pitied just a second ago was responsible for this impossible, superhuman feat, slipping under the edge of what used to be the car hood and bending it back as far as it could go. And it wasn’t the only tendril of dark at work. With the small aura of light, Ignis could see a forest of them – sprouting from the ether, slithering to him, lifting, touching. They were like seaweed, swaying at the lightless bottom of the ocean. It was like Ignis was in the middle of a graveyard, and the dead were waving.

Release from his death trap didn’t put an end to his agony. As the metal restraint was lifted from him and the oxygen rushed in, it felt like his blood was exploding. It was pain nothing like the constant, steady throb that he had been enduring until now. Instead, it was blood rushing through his veins like spark along the wick of a dynamite. It set every nerve afire, filling him so full he could almost burst. Ignis was not stronger than the pain. It wasn’t a defiant snarl that he made, or a growl – it was simply and indisputably an anguished scream. 

He was seeing red and he didn’t know why. His entire face might as well be a pulp of bruises, for all that it hurt. It wasn’t until a tendril of dark crept up his face – sticky, oily, clammy and just disgustingly cold – it wasn’t until it started to _pull_ that Ignis realized there was a jagged shard of glass where his left eye used to be. It wasn’t until the blood flowed down his face in a scarlet stream that Ignis understood that in his case, seeing red wasn’t just figurative.

He laid on his back – helpless, too stunned to move. His vision was reduced by half, but it wasn’t like it made a difference. The beads had been pulled from his limp hand, and there was nothing to look at in the darkness. The sky might as well be an abyss. His eye – or rather the place where his eye used to be – throbbed, and even if Ignis pressed his hand over the wound, the blood still came out in thick if sluggish gushes. In the end, he just left it alone.

Ignis hardly paid attention as he was propped up and leaned against a tree trunk. He hadn’t thought a change in position even mattered, but it did for the dark. It was rearranging him so that it could hold a mummery of a conversation. The Dark, after all, had plans for him. 

Out of nowhere _he_ appeared. He was no man, it was plain to see. If there was one word to qualify him, it would be _primal_. He was not cut out from the cloth that made the darkness, quite the opposite. He was the wool out of which some earlier, more elemental gods had spun the darkness, in their need of a shroud to throw over the bustling world, to grant it a moment of quiet, to tell it that it was alright to rest now that it was black outside. He walked on two feet as humans did, though Ignis knew it was only because it amused him, as it amused him to have a face, a voice, even a form. He needed none of those things to be complete in his existence, but didn’t mind trying them on once in a while like humans trying on a new set of clothes. He didn’t stand over Ignis to gloat, as Ignis would’ve thought. However, when Ignis saw what he was doing, it didn’t take long to sink into his numb, overworked brain that it was worse. 

The sight tore another snarl from him, propelling him up on his feet – only to be pulled back and slammed against the tree so hard the breath was knocked out of him. The Lord of the Dark tutted. He was holding a shard of glass to his wrist – and Ignis could hardly tell if it was the same shard he’d pulled free from Ignis’ skull. When he pressed it hard against his pallid skin, it was not venom that sprung from his veins. No mere toxin could be so vile. What sprang forth from the Dark were daemons – layers upon layers of them, crowding each other to swim in their misery. The Dark let out an exquisite sigh as he held his cut wrist over a form that lied prone on the ground in front of him. 

The noise that slipped from Ignis’ mouth in recognition and grief was not human.

He was bound tight with tendrils of darkness and didn’t give even the slightest sign of being alive. But Ignis knew who it was, and what was being done to him, and why. The Dark had Noctis within his grasp, and he was working at unmaking him. He was reducing Noctis to the substance that made up his being, to make him vanish. The roiling mass of daemons crouching, moaning, growling over him was so uncanny, and the Dark’s blood added to them layers and layers of malice, until even the air was thick with their curse. It was hard to reconcile the image of so much insidiousness with the single visible blue eye that caught Ignis’, for only a second, before it vanished under the invasion. It was _heartbreaking_ to think that this would be the last time Ignis got to see those blue eyes that he had gazed into for so many long hours. 

It was hard to accept that the light in those blue eyes might have become dark forever. 

“Ardyn,” Ignis croaked. Or, he thought he did. He might have made a growl that resembled the daemons’ snarling, he didn’t know. Everything in him, inside and out, felt as ugly as the daemons that he was contemplating with horror as they formed a solid dark cocoon around Noctis’ form, swallowing him from Ignis’ view. Ignis didn’t even hear a whimper or see a stir of protest. The Dark had stolen even that bit of agency from Noctis while Ignis watched on, helpless and bleeding over the ground like the useless human he was. “Ardyn.” He wondered how, with his human mind, he could still behold a God’s name? How did he manage to pronounce it, without being struck dead? “Why do you do this?” He went on to half implore, half lament. “What are you even doing?”

When the Dark turned to look at him, his expression was almost tender. “Hush now, brother,” he crooned, and the tendrils of darkness propped Ignis up further, forcing him to take a full look. Ignis couldn’t quite choke back a cry of terror, a cold sweat breaking out on his back as he saw a blue eye swimming in the pool of oily blackness where an eye had no business being. 

Ardyn laughed when Ignis began to retch. “Oh, you who always think you know better, you can’t see the plain truth when it’s all spread out in front of your eyes – oh, excuse me, I meant your _eye_.” His body swayed in mimicry of the act of pushing laughter from his throat. “I’m only taking back what belongs to me. Salvaging the scraps, returning to the drawing board. Don’t worry, brother. It doesn’t hurt at all. It’s just like going home.”

“Don’t do this,” Ignis pleaded. Ardyn paced, head tilted, as if waiting for more. Ignis only too happily supplied him, hoping against all hopes that he would mollify Ardyn by giving him what he wanted. But what did he know? What could he even offer up as an appeal? His mind was an empty cavern, and all he had rattling around it was a few stories. “Don’t do this. You loved him, too. You love him as he is. Don’t change him. Don’t take it away from him.”

“Ah, yes. Of course you would speak of love, you sentimental man.” Ardyn raised his free hand, and Ignis startled violently. By pure instinct, he started pulling at the coils of dark that restrained him, still to no avail, but at least it lessened the sense of helplessness that spread all around Ignis like paralysis. Ardyn now wore the beads of light that Ignis had held only moments ago. He turned his hand around and around, winding the strand around his arm until each pearl was pressed snug against his skin. Their weak, pulsing glow was by themselves a plea. “Sentiment is how you ended up here in the first place. Did my wayward Moon have a chance to get to the end of his stories?” When Ignis remained quiet, hoping it seemed more like defiance rather than powerlessness, Ardyn dashed even this bit of dignity he was grappling for. “No matter! I’ll just tell you, shall I?”

Ignis dug through his memory frantically. It would be a violation such as he’d never known, if he allowed Ardyn to tell the ending of his and Noctis’ stories. Surely he himself knew best what happened, surely it remained somewhere. Inside his sea-corroded mind there must be a kernel of memory, clinging like barnacles where the sea could not wash it off. But as hard as Ignis struggled, not even a grain of truth was shaken loose. And he knew Ardyn’s power over him only grew. 

Even in the dark Ignis could see his defeat.

“It all started so small, with a single bead,” Ardyn crooned softly, but each word was as loud as thunder. “I wonder what you meant that first bead of light to be? A thank you gift? A bribe? A curio, something to keep the boy interested? Or perhaps, a demonstration of the powers you have to give?” Each jeer hit Ignis like another shard of glass. He didn’t know. Was it? _Wasn’t it?_ “No matter the intention, it worked. The boy kept coming back to you, braving unknown territories borne by his dark wings – wings that I had seen fit to give him.” A crack, and Ignis choked out a cry as a bead snapped. The two halves fell from Ardyn’s hand, making no noise and leaving no trace as they hit the grass. “You taught him a number of things, I believe. Wondrous things. Colors. The petrichor of the earth after a new rain. Dances, each more ridiculous than the last, though nothing was as bad as that waltz. Lastly, you taught him the pleasures of the flesh.” Ardyn sighed. “How did it start? A kiss on the lips? No no, too scandalous, and you were ever so proper. Perhaps a touch of pinky fingers as you stood together to watch the light reflecting off a silver waterfall? Or your hands entwining, as you let him pull you up into the air, and you both descended into a secret moss covered cave, in a beam of your own light, admiring how it turned motes of dust and spores in the air into a swirling cascade of gold flecks? As your stood barefoot on the carpet-like softness of the moss, was that when the boy stood on the tips of his toes to touch his lips to yours?”

It was maddening. Even as Ardyn taunted him with memories that Ignis still didn’t dare to claim as his own, it became clear to him that the Lord of the Dark had not always been unkind. He recognized his gift for words and his knack for building drama with the cadence of his breath in every story that Noctis had told him. Before the Sun had come into his life, had the Moon spent hours at the Lord’s knee, listening wide-eyed to his suspenseful tales about the rest of the world? Had Ardyn, too, also taken Noctis to visit the wonders of the world as he saw it – shrouded in darkness? Ignis didn’t know. What he did know that the Lord of the Dark had loved his so-called wayward Moon, which made this entire violation of his being even harder to bear.

“Did you feel undeserving of his youth, his innocence and sense of wonder?” Ardyn continued, pacing. Snap, snap. Light sighed as it was squeezed out of each pearl – no, at this point, it was not even light yet, only the promise of brightness. The broken halves were flung carelessly into the ground in a strange paradox, as Ardyn sowed things not to see them grow, but to see them destroyed. “Or was it that you were in love? Was it the reason you scattered your gift like that, squandering it on an ungrateful brat? Every time you two parted he returned with yet another part of you squirrelled away in his pocket. Did you know what he got up to when your back was turned? Did you know that, with borrowed powers, he was playing at making light on his own?”

“It was not playing,” Ignis spat, pushing the last of his strength into manufacturing contempt. “He has a gift. The light thrives in his hands.” 

“More sentiments!” Ardyn snarled, as if it was a curse word. He flung a handful of broken pearls at Ignis’ face, their jagged edges tearing into his skin. “He is mine. _Mine!_ A creature of the Dark. What business did he have making light?” The vitriol in his voice turned whatever blood still yet running in Ignis’ veins into ice. He remembered, suddenly, about the Stars. Had the Dark hunted him down like he’d done Noctis? Had the Stars fallen, wings clipped, or was he still safe in the Sky’s domain? Ignis prayed fervently for the later – 

And almost laughed. Pray? He was a god. The oldest, most powerful of them, as Noctis had said. Who would he pray to?

“I’d say you gave away your common sense with each little gem of light,” Ardyn continued. He’d won yet another round when Ignis had fallen silent and was even too smug to acknowledge it. He went on instead, almost magnanimously. “Did you really think none of us would notice how you grew wan by the day? You were never one to flit around, but even a child could see that you kept to your cottage then because you were too weak to rise. Even the boy sensed something. But he didn’t know why you were ill either, did he? You didn’t tell him, and he’d taken you for granted. He probably thought your light was as limitless as my blood.”

Ardyn gave a harsh laugh, and Ignis couldn’t find it in him to judge his bitterness. Cursed was the god from whose blood the dark flowed, but the universe had not made an entirely unfair trade. For all that Ardyn must open his veins for night to come, the fountain of his blood was endless, even before it was contaminated with his evil creation. Ignis’ light in contrast was plentiful and generous, as it flowed without even a conscious effort, but apparently it was not inexhaustible after all. 

“And you didn’t even have the sense to stop then!” Ardyn berated as he continued to pace, looking every inch like a concerned sibling, only chewing out his brother for his own good. “Were you too vain? Did you have a death wish, maybe? Wanted to take a plunge to see how the vermin live, under the sky?” He scoffed. The scorn from him was palpable. For all that he governed the night, it seemed the darkest part of Ardyn was the hatred. “Or did you feel old and tired? Did you feel used as the god you were? Was the act of giving the only thing of your choosing? As you put these pearls into the hand of the only living being that could bear to be at your side, did you feel the most alive?”

The last pearl fell, crushed and defeated. Ardyn studied the cord for a moment – as if debating whether it was worth destroying too – and decided to just fling it down. He gave a kick to the formless mass of dark where Noctis had been before. Had the darkness spread out, now more like a puddle than an actual solid form? Even from the start it had not looked even vaguely human. “Noctis,” Ignis sobbed. He had not the strength to swallow it back. He had no courage left for defiance. As Ardyn came over, tilting his chin up with one still blood-soaked hand, Ignis was limp. And yet Ardyn was not done.

“Did you know it, when you’d given away the last bit of your light?” Ardyn asked, his eyebrows drawn in a mocking frown as he tutted. “Or were you as surprised as the rest of them? Who could have thought? The Sun, running out of Grace, falling so hard not even the Sky’s wings, not even all the Clouds that ever lived could lift him? The Sun, fallen to Eos, leaving only a dark gaping hole where so much radiance used to be?” His fingers were suddenly claws, digging into the tender skin at Ignis’ throat. “The Gods demanded answers, and hallelujah! Your light, brother, pointed the way.”

Ignis stared at him for a moment, still uncomprehending. But when the truth came over him, it was with ten, fifty—a hundred times the power of the ocean that had threatened to swallow him all those years ago. It was worse than anything he’d endured so far. It was _not_ like forgetting how to breathe. It was like forgetting why he existed at all. 

“As the world laid dark and quiet, out of nowhere came a pale, faint light,” Ardyn said. His voice was not the cruel taunting one that he had been using so far. It was deep, soft, and achingly beautiful, which made it even more disgusting when the insincerity shone through just enough to be recognized. “The Gods looked up from where they were mourning the Sun. At first, they were bemused, unable to make sense of what they were seeing. But without a doubt, that was the Sun’s light. After they’d made sure of that fact, what overcame them… was anger.” Ardyn smiled. “They followed the light, your loyal friends. They marched upon my poor, hapless Moon. They stood over him, where he had fallen down in fright. From his hands spilled the beads of light that you have given him. Evidence. An accusation.”

Ardyn paused for a moment, but it was not to spare Ignis’ feelings. He was relentless in that regard. “I’ll spare you the suspense, brother. Your Sky and my Stars weren’t among the divine mob. They were too busy mourning you, lost in their pain. More’s the pity – didn’t I already say sentiments are useless? They were the only ones who could have testified to the Moon’s innocence, but they forgot clean about him, they were so caught up in being sad about you.”

Another smile, and Ardyn pitched his voice down to mimic the booming of some gods that Ignis didn’t know. “‘Who are you?’ the Gods demanded. ‘What business does a darkling have with the Sun’s light? He must be a thief!’ In that moment, each god was trying to prove they loved you more than the others, and they played up their outrage. They demanded justice on the one who had killed the Sun. And my Moon, my poor, stupid boy. Stricken with guilt and remorse over what they told him he had done, he didn’t even call out to me for help. Just went to the execution like a lamb, let them hack off his wings and toss him over the edge of the Sky’s domain until he tumbled into the salt water of Eos.”

Ignis’ sight was blurred with blood and sweat. The salt tears stung the open wound where his eye used to be. Oh, Noctis. He thought of the scars over his shoulder blades, how Noctis had hidden them from him, ashamed. Was that what he thought he had done? Did he still feel that way? Had he come to Ignis not out of love or longing, but only as atonement, hoping to redeem himself somehow? Ignis couldn’t even be relieved that he had treated Noctis kindly. He had not dished out the punishment that Noctis longed for, but perhaps the oblivion in Ignis’ eyes, how far he’d fallen from the light, had been the worst punishment Noctis ever had to endure.

(In the depth of despair, Ignis forgot that even as a human, there were moments where he was radiant, too.)

“The gods, however, were a forever practical bunch,” Ardyn declared, sighing as if it pained him to say so. “Once justice was served, there came the matter of inheritance. They swept up the pearls scattered around the Moon’s home – stealing the sole possession of the boy they branded a thief. But soon they would come to regret their decision to cast him out, as the light would shine for no one else, none at all.” Ardyn smiled, and it was almost tender, even if the curl at the corner of his lips could cut glass and rip worlds apart. “They didn’t know what to do with the light after that, and well, I gave them a hand. I took the light, and I scattered them over Eos. It seemed fitting, since you were always so adamant that humans have light. But it seems your human pets made a genuine cock-up of things as always, huh? In the end, it still fell to the hands of my dear dark one to make the pearls shine again.”

“So, there you have it,” Ardyn declared. He touched his knuckles to Ignis’ face, flicking away—what? One mote of dust from the pearls that had clung to his skin, that had still gone on shining? A tear? Then he let go of Ignis altogether. As if on cue, the tendrils of darkness that had been holding Ignis up released him. He fell to the ground, numb with pain. This close to the ground, the fumes from the mass of dark was unbearable, but Ignis crawled to it. _Noctis,_ the part of him that made light and music wanted to scream, but it was mute. Oh, Noctis. With his wings clipped, he had still traversed the world to find Ignis the pieces of himself that he had given away. And when he had brought them back, Ignis had been too afraid of them to light them properly. 

“I’m a more just judge than your entire pantheon, aren’t I?” Ardyn continued on. “I returned things to exactly the way they were. You, restored with your light,” he made a broad gesture, presenting Ignis with all the light that he had buried. “And me, reunited with my own wayward shadow.”

Ignis keened. 

He propped himself up on his elbow, pushing slowly to his hands and knees. The blood had dried on his face, pulling the skin tight – discomfort to add to the spears of pain that still drove through his skull. Would that he could bleed light the way Ardyn bled dark, he thought bitterly. He would’ve opened all his veins just to be sure he’d given all he had to give. His hands hovered over the pool of darkness that used to be Noctis, and plunged down to touch it. It was silky and cold. There was not even a hand to hold, nor the suggestion of the curve of a cheek to cup. Tiny strands of dark stuck to his skin, clinging, but they were nothing like the strands of black hair that Ignis used to tangle his fingers into.

Just like that, unbidden, the song bled from him.

It was nothing like the powerful songs that Ignis used to sing on stage. It had nothing to do with passion, or rage, or hope so brutal it became violence. This song was one of pure grief, the creation in him struggling to be heard. It was as loud as a scream inside Ignis’ mind, but outwardly, all that came out was a fragmented hum that couldn’t quite be made out from Ignis’ keening and sobbing. 

And the dark reacted to it.

Was it his imagination? Was it wistful thinking, or was he finally going mad? The pool of darkness was growing warm under his hand. Slowly, more small strands reached out to climb up Ignis’ arms, winding around up to his elbows. Ignis shuddered, suppressing the goosebumps as he was reminded of the sensation of Noctis’ fingers walking across his skin.

Was this a trick? Some memory of his that Ardyn had stolen and now conjured, to keep him docile as he allowed the dark to consume him? The threat was dire enough that Ignis found the strength to lift his head and cast a glance in Ardyn’s direction. But Ardyn’s expression was not the smug triumph he would have worn if such a scheme had been in the work. Instead, his face was a mix of surprise, horror, and disgust, and he was glancing all around them, his head swiveling almost frantically, tendrils of darkness lashing and whipping the air with his movements. 

All around them, there were lights.

It was a garden of radiance. From the grass, blades of light shot up with all the hues of an oil spill. They were the color of the aura inside Ignis’ head when he’d gone too many days without sleep. Ignis couldn’t quite suppress the instinct to blink his eyes hard to try to clear them, and he regretted it instantly. The vision refused to go away, and the wound over his left eye sent a protesting ache that spread through not just his head but his entire body. Still, the light refused to fade.

In fact, the longer Ignis looked at it, the more it grew. And, he realized, the movements he was sensing weren’t merely an illusion brought on by his headache either. The lights were moving – throwing colorful rays and dots in a circular spin as the fragmented pearls rolled towards him. 

“What’s this?” Ardyn demanded, sounding every bit the spoiled child that he was. Ignis had no time and no answer for him. He’d stopped humming for a second, in surprise, and the lights had stuttered in their progress, like blind people having no sound to guide their course. It wasn’t the humming that had made the lights move. The humming was just a chant, a prayer, something to guide Ignis’ consciousness, as he in turn focused on guiding the lights home. So Ignis quickly gathered up his attention – like cupping quicksilver in the palms of his hands – and focused his mind on the trance. 

In his mind’s eyes he was not on his knees in a desolate wasteland of foul-smelling darkness. Years of practice and experience had provided him with the sensory memory needed: rough plank stage, tinny loudspeakers, single bare light bulb dim from an accumulation of grim and grease. And the audience – he didn’t need one. He only had to call up the image of a dark-haired young man wearing black clothes, keeping to the corner, barely tilting his face up so half his features were bare to the light and the other remained in the shadows. 

The pearls continued to roll to him like dew drops converging at the center of a lily pad. He’d seen those at the Vesperpool, but the bit about dew drops was courtesy of his imagination entirely. He’d absently remarked that the region must be beautiful in morning light, and Crowe had given him a disgusted look and even Nyx and Libertus had clapped him awkwardly on the shoulder with a ‘Oh, brother’ before moving on. Now he wished they could see this spectacle, lights moving at his call – and this feat didn’t involve daemon magic, even! Would Crowe be put off that he’d proven her wrong? He thought she might be, just a little bit, and she would retort with something like, _Go figure, of course you have to be a literal god. Show-off._

The pearls had come to a halt, forming a circle around him. Ignis recalled a hot, steamy afternoon, lying sweaty on his thin mattress, watching Noctis’ form decorated by thin slivers of electric light filtering in through barred windows. Ignis recalled the date over at Galdin Quay, the coldness of soaked garments plastered against his skin with a whip of the wind, the faint lingering smell of fish and canned tomatoes. As he looked inside the pool of darkness, he couldn’t yet distinguish any familiar features – even with all the wistful thinking in the world. But when he looked at the lights, he was determined. There wasn’t any alternate course to even consider. 

Ignis scooped up a handful of the light and pressed it into the mass of dark, where Noctis’ heart would be. 

He was not sure the placement even mattered, but no matter Ardyn’s derision, some gestures required sentiment. And Ignis had enough material to make sure this was not only an empty gesture. He pressed down hard, like a child building a sand castle, and the dark sprang back slightly under his hands, resisting. Ignis forced it back with sheer force of will, pressing down until the light was finally swallowed. Then he scooped up another handful of light, and started over again.

“What are you doing?” Ardyn moaned. He’d fallen to the ground, as if each fistful of light was a blade that he’d taken right through his heart. Ignis ignored him, but he couldn’t help but notice that Ardyn sounded truly and sincerely scared. “You great blundering fool, stop! It’s one thing to break your light down into small bits. It’s one thing to scatter all the bits. It’s one thing to even crush them! But no, you fool, don’t put them in the dark! That would taint them forever! That would be the end of light. Do you know what that means? Listen to me, damn you!” A tendril of dark flung out, knocking right at Ignis’ temple, throwing him to the ground. But it didn’t interrupt the trance, nor did Ignis spare the energy to answer. He only picked himself up and tried again, and as the next handful of light went in Ardyn erupted into a wail. “Stop! Stop! Don’t you understand what you’re doing? It’s pointless. Pointless! He’s made of the dark, you can’t change that. You can’t even claim divinity for him – he is my creation! He has never lived, he has no soul, he cannot die. And you—you are _nothing_!” 

Ignis ignored all that. He would say he didn’t even hear Ardyn’s rambling, but he did, and it made him furious. If he shoved in the next handful of light a little more viciously, it was only between Ardyn and him. And yet that didn’t feel enough, and in the end he was compelled to give voice to the truth. “You’re wrong. You’re utterly wrong.” How could Noctis have not lived? His blue eyes had known the light, his lips had shaped the name of colors. He’d petted Thunder and Lighting and had dipped his fingers into the golden birds’ feathers. He had friends. He had left his mark on the earth, too, as he drove over Eos, rooted around in its caverns, dived into its murky depth – only to retrieve the beads of light, one by one. He’d accomplished more since he had fallen than Ignis had done over his entire long experience. He’d left more than enough marks on the world to belong to it. 

As he worked, Ignis thought nothing of the gods nor the rest of Eos. All his thoughts were on Noctis. _I’m sorry,_ he cried. _I’m sorry, sorry, sorry._ He must have not been doing that out loud though, because the tears were not stinging his eye. Nothing was distracting him from contemplating the consequences of his actions. _I’m sorry for abandoning you,_ he thought fiercely. _I’m sorry for giving you a poisoned gift. I’m sorry I left you all alone, all those years. I’m sorry I didn’t remember._ What was it like for Noctis to arrive on Eos, already hurting, bleeding, and afraid? What had it taken him to pick himself up from the weight of guilt and betrayal? What had sparked the idea of collecting the light at all? Had he seen them falling down from the Sky’s domain like a meteor shower before going dark? How had he found Ignis, in the first place?

Even as he thought about it, the events leading up to their meeting – or, more accurately, their reunion – were lining up in Ignis’ mind. It suddenly became obvious. Of course Noctis had found him. It was his songs. They must have drawn Noctis closer, then the rumors from people would help him pin point where to look. And then—And then there he was. Ignis was choking on regret, now. What was it like for Noctis to embrace a lover who didn’t remember him? Did Ignis’ presence draw out all kinds of guilt and remorse for him to endure alone, all while forcing himself to look so cheerful and serene?

 _I thought I was the wise one,_ Ignis thought bitterly. _You must have thought so too. In the end, it was only proper that our roles were reversed – you becoming the one with all the stories, all the secrets of the universe, and I only an awed listener. But whatever I have omitted to tell you, Noctis, at least I have said one important thing. That you are the teacher and not I. Being at your side I learned again what it meant to shine, truly._

And then there was no more light.

Ardyn was curled up on the ground like a child, sobbing, wailing. Ignis’ hands were folded lightly over the dark form, empty. The last bead had gone, sinking without making so much as a ripple, and they were again left in the dark. Despite Ignis’ desperate searching – not only with his failing sight, but with trembling fingers and lastly, as hope grew slim, even with quivering lips – the pool of dark had not become any more like Noctis. “You’ve ruined everything,” Ardyn wailed, as if he wanted an end to this nightmare right now. As he curled up on his knees, beating the ground with his fists, the tendrils of dark reversed, pulling back around him to form a protective cocoon, enveloping and rocking him slightly, even.

Ignis didn’t disagree with him necessarily. Yes, he was aware he’d ruined everything. But it wasn’t important. Right now, what was important was his instinct – telling him he had not yet exhausted all resources. If he could think through the throbbing of his head, the pain flaring everywhere in his body – if he could just reach into that hidden corner of his mind and pluck out that idea – and then he had it. Ignis didn’t recall putting a hand into his pocket, but he must have done so, for now he held the gold earcuff between his fingers. 

His crown.

“Oh, give it away, why won’t you?” Ardyn moaned. “Give it away to the dark, give it to the taint, yes, do it! Good idea!” He laughed, a hysterical, broken sound. Ignis found that he was genuinely sorry for Ardyn since he sounded so frightened. Someone had to, because Ignis supposed in grief and misery he had taken leave of his common sense. Ardyn couldn’t stop him, not physically, and not with his words, but it didn’t mean he wasn’t trying. “The very last seed of light that’s left, the only hope we have of fixing things if everything else goes wrong. Which it did, by the way! Did you see any of your light return from the dark? No!” He dragged a hand down his face, smearing black ichor all over his skin. “Silly me. Why did I even bother so hard to destroy you? You’re already doing that to yourself.” Then he sat up, suddenly lively, his voice dropped into a private, conspiratorial whisper. “You know that won’t change anything, right? A crown, my ass! It was only your starting capital. You kept it from pure sentiment! The earth might have given you gold to embellish it, but it’s still worth nothing. It’s weak! It has no value. It didn’t even stop you from falling from grace. What makes you think it’d be any good now?”

Ignis held the earcuff in his hand. He traced his fingers over the familiar curve and spikes once more. Despite what Ardyn said, it didn’t feel like a part of himself. That didn’t mean, however, that it didn’t matter to Ignis, and he ruefully apologized to it, like saying goodbye to an old friend. Then he snapped it in half. It was easy, far easier than he’d thought breaking metal would be. It broke like a dry twig, like snapping plastic. It also felt like breaking every bone in his body in half. It was like all of him was compressed into a point – and then kept going, until there was nothing left at all. 

Uncertain of whether he still existed, and if he did, for how long – Ignis fumbled blindly. He thought he’d managed to gather up the two halves of the crown, pressing them to the form that was Noctis. It might do him no good, like jewelry buried with the dead – there to rot, utterly useless. It might also have spelled the end of the world. In that moment, Ignis didn’t care. All he knew was condensed in one fact: that he didn’t want to have ever existed at all in a world that had no trace of Noctis in it.

 _Please remember him,_ Ignis threw his entire being – what was left of it – into the plea. If he was really coming apart, all the better. Let it be so that the wind carried every particle of him to the rest of Eos and the heavens, where they would continue to sing his plea until it was heard, or until the universe ended, whichever came first. 

He begged the air to remember the wake of the wind from the flaps of Noctis’ black-feathered wings. He appealed to the grass to remember the soles of his feet, the imprint of his elbows as he stretched out after a picnic, not minding that bits of him poked out over the blanket, laughing when the grass tickled him. He compelled the ocean to remember the dip from Noctis’ fingertips, the rain to remember the blood of him that it had washed off and carried away into streams, into underground lakes, into the air to start again. He begged the wind to remember each strand of dark hair it had lifted, each black feather it had carried away. 

From all the traces Noctis ever left in the world, Ignis built a mold and begged the world to fill it again. _Use the light, use me, it doesn’t matter,_ he wanted to say. In the end, his plea was selfish. _I don’t want to die without him._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> whew that chapter was my favorite. and it just kept going i literally came up with so many things even as i wrote it on paper  
> it took forever to type up though, i was like shit girl did you scratch all this shit out  
> yes i did  
> i hope you enjoyed the reveal of the mythos and there's one final chapter to let you know what really happens...  
> please leave me a little message if you've read and enjoyed this chapter thank you!!!


	9. epilogue

The Lady of Healing lived in a cottage not too far from the cliff where Prompto’s golden birds liked to hide. Before he’d come to know her, Prompto had seen the place often as he came and went to visit his birds, but he had always refrained from trespassing into the fields. The Lady’s cottage was humble, but the flowers – shining like blue jewels and singing as they swayed in non-existant breezes – were truly magnificent. The chime of the bell-shaped blossoms called out to those in need. With their sweet voices, they told the people seeking healing exactly where they needed to go.

Seeing the Lady for the first time had been a privilege. He hadn’t been seeking healing for himself, but for the limp, helpless bird with the broken wing that he’d been cupping in his palms. Amidst the bird’s desperate keening, it was a small miracle that he managed to make out the call of the flowers. Furthermore, it was lucky for him that, unlike sirens or kelpies or any other singing creatures in the stories that Gladio had told him, the song of the sylleblossoms had guided him to safe harbors. 

(Gladio had grumbled that the point of the stories was to remind Prompto to be a little more cautious. Prompto knew he should have been, really, but he had been _worried_. What else could he have done?)

Prompto had lingered at the field just long enough to watch the Lady – Lunafreya, as she would have him call her – bandage the bird’s wings. They agreed that the bird would be better off recovering in its own nest, watched over by its worried parents. So, as soon as Lunafreya allowed it, Prompto had taken the bird in his hands and set off towards the cliff again. He felt terrible about his hasty departure, even if it had been necessary. He returned to bring Lunafreya cloud-wool and star-dust as tokens of his gratitude, along with news of the bird she had saved. Their meetings kind of stretched a little longer each time they saw each other until they were no longer mere polite social calls. 

Lunafreya was sweet and kind. Unlike those who hoard their knowledge, she would never hesitate to tear through her cottage for books to put in front of Prompto whenever he asked any question she thought she could use as a teaching moment. Prompto didn’t mind the work; he liked learning to help people heal, and he liked the challenge of the learning itself. Before he knew it, he had had his own spot in her home – perching at one corner of her huge kitchen table with his wings warmed by the fire, the perfect vantage point to watch her work the tools of her trade. She could work even clunky things like grinders or mortars and make every gesture look like art. 

He was at home here. He loved the musky, earthy scent of drying herbs, the swaying shadows that the bundles cast in the firelight. He loved the sweet smell of honey, the anticipation of seeing it seep from the combs at the press of the back of a spoon. He felt a simple but great satisfaction watching Lunafreya pull sticky malt syrup from a vat, wrapping it around a stick and snipping its golden thread with scissors, dropping everything into herb powders and kneading the mix into pellets. Everything was precise, purposeful, and with his observant eyes he could learn a lot in this peace. If not for the absence of Gladio, Prompto could have stayed here forever. 

And then there was another thing he couldn’t really get used to (and most likely never would): how the Lord of Storms would dart in and out of the kitchen occasionally, muttering a different excuse each time (a sharp knife to trim his quill, a cup of tea, a scent to soothe his headache.) Prompto could tell from the first that all the Lord really wanted was to keep an eye on him. On days where Gladio joined their little group, the Lord of Storms’ visits were even more frequent. The way his fierce mismatched eyes fixed on Prompto and Gladio was a declaration in itself: _If you even think about harming my sister, I will put you under this grinder and turn you to paste piece by piece._ It was nerve-wracking. Honestly, Prompto wished the Lord would just go ahead and say it aloud so that Prompto could tell him that he had no intention of doing such a thing at all. As things were, though, Prompto had to deal with the intimidation since he was too nervous to speak up. 

Gladio was no help, seeing as he thought the entire thing was hilarious. He remained unfailingly polite to Lord Ravus, giving the master of the storms no excuse to linger in the kitchen, forcing him to quietly retreat each time, fuming that he’d failed to catch them at their heinous acts. As for their dogs, they were even more useless. Thunder and Lightning blatantly relished each chance to suck up to Lord Ravus, spending several visits’ worth falling over themselves at Lord Ravus’ feet begging for scratches and pets. Lord Ravus, amazingly, not only didn’t strike them down where they stood, but also doted on them like a loving mother with her prized children. It was mind-boggling to Prompto, but he knew the dogs were good judges of character. Besides, he had plenty of evidence that Lord Ravus, no matter how terse and coarse, could not be a bad man. The way he tenderly patted his sister’s hair whenever he came close enough to do so, the way he obediently stood and peeled a random root with his clumsy hands at her table just so he could spend a moment longer at her side for her to finish the story she was telling – there were many details that were indications enough of that.

“Almost done!” declared Luna. As if to prove it, she lifted the small saucepan from the stove. Hurriedly, both Gladio and Prompto moved: Gladio to set out the heavy wrought-metal pot holder that he’d snatched off a shelf, and Prompto to select a bowl from the dish rack sitting on the window sill to dry in the sun. As Prompto’s fingers dipped into the warm honey sunlight, he sent out a thought, _Will you be here soon? We’re going to see him, any moment now._ Then he hurried back with the bowl, setting it on a tray so Luna could pour a golden soup, thick with greens and roots into it. Just looking at the bowl made Prompto warm all the way from the inside. 

“Shall we go ahead?” Gladio asked. His wings were folded as neatly as possible on his back, but he still moved around the cottage with exaggerated, deliberate care. Prompto could tell he was trying hard not to allow his wings to flicker in impatience, lest he knocked down half the jars packed tight on Luna’s shelf. “The food will get cold if we tarry.”

“It’s not sunset yet,” Prompto reminded him. Gladio let out a huff but didn’t argue it further. He didn’t sit down either though, instead going to the window, planting his hands on the sill and gazing out toward his domain. Prompto could tell that Gladio was waiting for the colors to burst into that fantastic spectacle of red, orange, purple, pink, and blue of twilight, all colors exploding and streaking across the horizon. Perhaps he was even tracking the last rays of the light, following the Sun’s westward journey as he trekked the long route towards the flower fields, and the cottage.

Gladio was at the door before anyone else even heard the knocks. Pulling it open, he stepped back, though he didn’t miss the chance to let the Sun know how exasperated he was at his tardiness. “Took you long enough.”

Noctis ducked his head apologetically, smiling up at Gladio in a tentative offer of peace. Seeing him still felt a little like being punched in the face by awe. Prompto was still working on reconciling the sight of Noctis now with his knowledge of the friend he’d lost. He’d cried over Noctis for years, and even with the Gods forbidding it he probably would’ve gone on to look for him if it wasn’t for Gladio’s sake. The world would be in utter ruins if the Sky fell again – hell, the _Sky_ would have been an utter ruin if Prompto had allowed him to fall again. Gladio had been devastated enough by guilt and remorse over the loss of his oldest love. He’d needed Prompto, and Prompto had chosen to stay by his side – if only to make sure the world still existed, to give Noctis – wherever he was – a place to come back to.

And come back to them he had.

The first time that Prompto had laid eyes on Noctis as the Sun, he’d thought him resplendent. Months after, familiarity had not even made a dent in that immense admiration. If anything, now that Noctis was used to the weight of his mantle and that of his new wings, he was even more radiant. His wings were now twice as big as Prompto’s (a fact that Prompto had whined at him over, only to recoil in horror when he realized he’d called the new Sun a showoff. Noctis, for his part, had laughed himself sick at Prompto’s sudden alarm.) They were not as fine as Noctis’ black ones in Prompto’s eyes, but he could appreciate the beauty in the strong, elegant lines, and in the thousands of colors racing through the folds of opaline feathers. Wings like that could be anything, depending on which way the light caught them. They could be morning fog, they could be molten gold, flowing fire. They could be spring flowers in full bloom, they could carry the expanse and depth of the entire ocean. 

As breathtakingly beautiful as the wings were, however, they didn’t cover up Noctis’ old scars. Proud, ragged old wounds laid the foundation and framed Noctis’ new glory. They were a perfect token of Noctis’ origins. Not that Noctis needed it; he knew well enough who he was– the reminder was for the other Gods. A kick in the teeth, as Noctis had put it – reminding them of what they had done, and more importantly, what they had failed to do.

“Are we going?” he asked, pulling his crown free from jet-black locks shot through with silver streaks. Prompto had never been one for poetry, but he couldn’t help but think the shooting-star strands suited him. He gave Noctis the time to carefully tuck his crown away into his pocket, and nodded, clapping his hands a little in excitement.

“Yeah, everything is ready. Let’s go!”

They filed past Lord Ravus in the living room. Thunder and Lightning were piled on him even as he fruitlessly attempted to push their butts of an illustrated storybook open on his lap. He seemed thrilled to have the cottage back to himself for a while, and the dogs also seemed excited for a chance to monopolize his attention. Prompto was briefly amazed at the softness of the heart of a god who tried to tell stories to dogs – no wonder Ravus thought he had to compensate with a stony exterior. It was also an observation that Prompto would bring with him to the grave, so he offered only a harmless smile, which Ravus answered with a grunt. Prompto had no doubt that Ravus would go back to baby-talking to the dogs as soon as his visitors were out of earshot.

They all knew the way well by now of course, but they let their host, Luna, lead the way. Noctis walked ahead with her, catching up on the day’s news and gossip. Without any conscious effort from his part, Noctis’ light turned the sylleblossoms his way, sending ripples through the entire field and conjuring a chorus of chiming bells in his wake. Luna was giggling at something he’d said. Prompto, for his part, was more than happy to trail behind with Gladio. The bigger man had his hands busy because he was carrying the tray of food that Luna had put together, but occasionally he would brush the tip of his wing against Prompto’s, and even turn to smile at him.

The cave was unassuming when seen from the outside, covered by vines and dried leaves blown in by a convergence of winds. Even when they first stepped in, nothing seemed overly special about the place except for a light dusting of golden down feathers faintly illuminating the ground they walked. Prompto’s friends, the yellow songbirds, had told him the cave used to be one of their dwelling places, but at the Lady of Healing’s request, they had moved out, leaving the place of power to be used for sanctuary and convalescence by those who really needed it.

After they’d gone through the narrow entrance, however, the inside of the cave unveiled in a spectacle that Prompto never tired of, especially not with Noctis at the lead illuminating the way. The inside of the cave was overgrown with crystals like the inside of a giant geode. The sharp edges and hard facets of semi-translucent gems caught the Sun’s light and reflected them back in a halo of colors, sharp rays spearing through the mild white light that suffused the space around them. As Noctis went further in, the white light grew stronger and steadier, as if it was reaching out to them in an embrace. 

This illumination, however, didn’t come from Noctis. As Ignis stood to greet them, he was a cascade of silver light.

It was a good day, Prompto thought, as he watched Noctis rush over to his beloved’s side. Most days Ignis still couldn’t keep himself on his feet without wearing himself out. Which, considering how he’d fundamentally dismantled himself, was still a miracle. Noctis knew this too and fussed over Ignis’ smallest efforts like a fussy mother hen, running his hands down Ignis’ face, tangling the still-taller God in the folds of his great opaline wings. 

It had been a little strange when Prompto had first started to call Ignis by name, but it was less confusing than the alternative. When he’d first come back, Prompto had started to call him the Sun, and tripped all over himself apologizing, for fear his words could be felt as mockery. Ignis had brushed his concerns right away. _We’re all friends_ , he’d said. _I kept telling you to call me by my name._

Prompto had stopped in his tracks, keeping his distance, but Gladio didn’t have any qualms about interrupting the lovers’ embrace. After putting down his tray of food, he grumbled a reminder that they would have the rest of the night together, so would they please let Luna do her work? He went over to the bed, fluffed up the pillows, inspecting the state of the blankets and rugs. The crystal cave, as suitable as it was for focusing the energy Ignis required for healing, was still a cold hard place with plenty of sharp edges. Gladio had solved that problem in the way he liked best: to heap cloud-wool over it until all the harshness went away. In fact, he was downright thrilled to have another output for his stock of wool, and had declared he wouldn’t accept any alternative as far as Ignis was concerned. Maybe the former Sun no longer needed the Clouds to dim his light, but the Clouds were still the warmest and softest damn thing in the heavens and under, and after what he’d gone through, Ignis deserved all the softness and warmth that Gladio could give him.

Living with Gladio for so long, Prompto had started to develop a proprietary pride for his creation, and couldn’t help but join him in his effort to straighten out the bed. He had the right – he was the one who’d woven the tapestry that hung like a canopy over Ignis’ bed, after all. He’d tried his best to replicate the colors in Noctis’ black wings, overlapping silky black with all the colors he could ever imagine, making the entire cloth shine with woven pieces of star-dust. Ignis couldn’t see it just yet, but Prompto hardly thought his handiwork was wasted. He was sure that sooner rather than later Ignis would be able to admire the tapestry and read the story it told in its entirety. 

When Gladio was done, Noctis led Ignis over to sit down. Ignis hardly needed Noctis’ help to navigate the narrow space of his home, but he indulged him nonetheless, wringing out every moment of contact in the time they spent at each other’s side. Their hands remained knotted together even as Luna came over to examine her patient. 

“This won’t take long,” she promised as always, reaching out to clasp her hands over Ignis’ cheeks. Docilely, he tilted his face up to the direction of her voice.

Ignis’ face was a ravaged landscape. Noctis had not been evasive about the extent of the damage done to them in Eos, but Prompto still had a hard time imagining what must have happened to mar Ignis’ face this way. His left eye was gone entirely, the eyelid sealed shut under a thick gnarled tangle of scar tissue. The other eye remained in place, but it was milky, opaque, veiled over with what seemed like thunderclouds, and failed to react even as Luna peered closely into it. Over Ignis’ face there was a scattering of smaller scars where glass had broken and cut into his skin. There was a deep dent in his lower lip, and another cut over the bridge of his nose that still looked painful even if it had been healed for ages. 

It was sad to see all the reminders of how badly he’d been hurt, but Prompto had to admit that even with all the scars, Ignis was lovely. There was a calm and poise to him now that was even greater than the grace he’d carried as the Sun. It was as if his exile to Eos had made him even older and wiser. His hair, now silver-grey instead of fawn-colored, fell down in messy strands over his forehead despite his effort to slick it back. The soft, slightly curled strands helped to soften his visage, but most of the credit was claimed already by the soft smile that always adorned his lips.

“Looks good,” Luna declared as she pulled away. Prompto could not see any difference in Ignis’ state compared to when they’d visited yesterday, but who was he to contradict the Lady of Healing, really? He allowed himself to believe in the optimism of her words. “I made you some soup. The roots are especially potent this time of the year, and Noctis helped me gather plenty. You’ll make a full recovery before any of us realize it, I promise.”

“If you had managed to make Noctis handle vegetables, then it means you can perform miracles, and I have no choice but to believe so as well,” Ignis agreed, chuckling softly. “After all, I am in such good hands.” He was addressing his thanks to all of them, but Prompto could tell only Noctis’ presence at his side mattered. Prompto watched as Ignis squeezed Noctis’ hand in his own. The smile when he felt the bed shift as Noctis moved over closer to rest his head on his shoulder was devastatingly tender. The laugh when Noctis pouted and whined at him spoke of happiness beyond anything a less noble heart could ever hold.

Even now that he was the carrier of all of the world’s light, in moments like this Noctis still looked so incredibly young. Ignis raised a hand to stroke his hair, allowing a few moments of silence to elapse (no doubt so that he could feel Noctis practically purring at his side with contentment) before speaking up again. “I do feel stronger today, Lunafreya. Perhaps I could do as you’ve suggested and go outside to take some fresh air.”

The air in the cave immediately seemed to vibrate. Such excursions had happened before, but the occasions were few and far between. As soon as the words left Ignis’ lips, a sense of quiet excitement and barely restrained anticipation spread over all of them. Luna’s “Yes, of course!” might as well be a chirp, though she tried her best to sound stern. “But not before you’ve eaten! I’ve worked too hard on the soup to let it go to waste!”

“I wouldn’t even dream of it,” Ignis agreed. As if on cue, Gladio got up to push the table with the tray closer, then went to fetch a towel so Noctis could hold the bowl without worrying about spills. (The soup was still piping hot, but if there was someone who didn’t need to worry about burns, it was Noctis. He only needed to blow on each spoonful once to get them down to the right temperature to put to Ignis’ lips.) Luna sat quietly to the side to supervise the process, chatting idly about the curative effects as well as the culinary merits of the roots and herbs in the day’s concoction. Prompto, wanting to contribute to the buzz of the miracle about to take place, went to fill Ignis’ water pitcher with clear water from a stream that flowed down from the mountaintop. When he placed a glass of fresh spring water into Ignis’ hand, the man’s thank-you was so solemn and Noctis’ expression so filled with love and gratitude that all Prompto could do was blush.

Eventually, all the preparations were made. Ignis was fed and watered. Gladio had bundled him up in his cloak – big enough to wrap almost twice around Ignis – pinning it as securely as possible against the wind. Noctis stood first, offering his hand and folding back his wings to get them out of the way. Despite that, the first thing Ignis did after pulling himself up was to seek out those wings so he could card his fingers through the feathers. He let out the softest of sighs, but one that seemed like it carried the weight of the world. Prompto wondered if it was just Ignis’ way to make sure that all this was real, that Noctis was healed and now stood at his side. The fact that he felt he needed to damn near broke Prompto’s heart.

Noctis, for his part, was smiling as though there was nothing else in the world for him. The world was just Ignis, hanging from his arm, his hand tucked in the crook of Noctis’ elbow, his cheek leaning on the top of Noctis’ head. They set out like that, and though there were probably easier ways to negotiate the narrow opening, nobody had the heart to tell them so. 

Prompto didn’t even have to worry about the perils of the dim passage – to Ignis, it was all the same now anyway. The Sun had fully set. With Noctis off duty for the day, the Dark had returned. 

The dark had always made Prompto a bit homesick. He knew the Lord of the Dark must be ever lonelier, shunned as he was by the other gods after they’d learned of his crimes. Prompto would’ve visited him, but he had to admit he was still afraid of the Lord. If he came back, he wasn’t sure the Lord would let him leave at all. Still, he wasn’t completely without hope. With the light returned and the balance of the world restored, perhaps Ardyn’s sanity would return. However long it might take, maybe one day he’d become more like the man Prompto knew he could be, and then Prompto would feel safer about visiting his home.

They stood amidst the field of sylleblossoms now. Noctis continued to walk, leading Ignis further on, but Luna and Gladio had both stopped, hanging back to allow the lovers some privacy. Taking the cue, Prompto did, too. He watched as Noctis slowed, then stopped, and Ignis bent to trail his fingers over a patch of flowers, smiling at the responding chimes to his caress. Noctis suddenly dropped down, so quickly that Prompto half thought he had fallen, but before he could worry he saw that Noctis had simply sat down to put his head at the same height as the sylleblossoms. Ignis, laughing, also patted the top of his head, his fingers trailing strands of night and starlight. 

Ignis’ cloak fluttered about him in the mild breeze. The silver light about him grew as a manifestation of his happiness. The light didn’t really chase the dark away – it barely nudged it back, almost tenderly, playfully, as it spread like a balm over the bleeding wound that had open into darkness.

Ignis had let go of Noctis’ arm, but he didn’t go far. In fact, he took only a step before turning around to face Noctis, holding out his arms as if embracing an imaginary lover. Prompto didn’t quite understand what it meant until Noctis, laughing, got up and stepped into the circle of Ignis’ arms, placing one hand in Ignis’ and the other on the taller man’s shoulder. Ignis’ lips moved as he whispered something into Noctis’ ear, which Noctis seemed to protest vehemently for only a minute before he let himself be persuaded. Gladio let out a little snort as they watched Ignis help Noctis stand on his feet – followed by a little ‘oof’ when Luna elbowed him.

Just like that, they started dancing. Slowly at first, Ignis not quite sure where to step – and then, with reckless abandon. They looped and gallivanted through the sylleblossoms field in ever-widening, slightly lopsided circles, making their own music as they went. Silver light trailed in their wake, as well as the parting of the flowers and their cheerful, fragile chimes. Prompto marveled at the sheer magic of it, the simple fact that the two of them were alive and well and able to do so many things after all the hurt and suffering that ought to have left them broken. The sight made his heart sing as well, and he found himself gravitating closer to Gladio’s side to hold his hand and feel the strong, steady beat of his heart. 

They giggled together, charmed and utterly delighted, when Noctis lifted himself to the air with gentle flutters of his wings, hovering around Ignis and sending his hair and cloak billowing. Noctis’ flight made the dance even looser, the circles ever wider, and inevitably they tripped. It was impossible to tell who had gotten themselves tangled first – they fell over in the flowers with a peal of laughter so loud it cut Prompto’s brief flare of concern short, and the three watchers contented themselves with standing there watching instead of hurrying over to offer assistance. 

They were right not to worry. Noctis sat up first, and Ignis pulled himself up after him. The silver light had continued to grow, now a pale halo wrapping over him and Noctis in a protective bubble. If Ignis could not see his own light, could he at least feel it? He, Ignis – the Sun who had thought the only way to share his light was to give it away bit by bit? He, who’d genuinely believed that there was only a limited supply of light in the world, that it could possibly run out and be lost? Could Ignis learn to perceive light by other senses? Ignis had said often enough that it was Noctis who had taught him to see the world in new ways – Did he then, now, knew better about the nature of the light? Or maybe he had always known, but his instincts had only lied dormant after so many millennia of not being called on. Prompto supposed that something in Ignis had already known that light could not be broken, only multiplied. Or maybe he had simply wanted to share the only part of him that felt worthy of the love he held for Noctis, and he had taken a leap of faith.

In the flower fields, they kissed. Quietly, Luna turned away to make her way back to her cottage. Prompto and Gladio followed suit, though neither of them could resist throwing looks over their shoulders. Not because they were in any way worried – Ignis’ light was so pure and white it could only belie the health and happiness of its source. No, they were just looking in wonder, taking a peek at the secret before they let the lovers have the night for themselves. The last sight that Prompto caught before walking away was Noctis putting his hand into his pocket and pulling out the second half of his crown. It was the very same crown that Ignis had passed down to him by placing it into Noctis’ very heart, both halves of it. 

Prompto did not need to see Noctis place the half-crown onto Ignis’ hair to know that tonight it would shine more brilliantly than ever before, and that tonight in Eos, for the first time after long years, the full Moon would cast down its benevolent light over the night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Woo!! I finally completed this fic. This is a wild ride, and I enjoyed starting something out of only the vaguest story to see all the details fall together, like it was fate. :0 I hope you enjoyed reading and if you'd consider leaving me a comment, that would make my day!  
> Thank you for sticking around this far. You guys................ are the best.


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